Scientists in Singapore and Japan have developed a tiny 3D-printed scuba suit for cyborg cockroaches, allowing them to survive and move underwater and other low-oxygen environments for up to three hours. The suit can transform a regular cockroach, and potentially other insects, into “an amphibious cyborg robot capable of operation across land and water,” according to a new research paper published this week in Nature Communications. The study was conducted by scientists at Nanyang Technological University and Waseda University. So, why do researchers want half-robot cockroaches to breathe underwater anyway? Apparently, they hope to one day be able to use cyborg cockroaches in search and rescue missions, pipeline inspection, and other complex tasks. NTU Professor Hirotaka Sato, who led the study, has been working on cyborg insects for more than a decade. These hybrid robots combine living insects with electrodes that allow humans to remotely control their movements. Sato and his co-authors argue that this setup can make them more useful than traditional robots in some situations.
Unlike conventional robots, cyborg insects consume less energy because they use their own muscles to move. They are also small enough to move through confined and cluttered spaces that larger robots may not be able to reach. These cyborgs have already been used in actual search-and-rescue operations, including Operation Lionheart after the 7.7-magnitude earthquake in Myanmar in March, according to NTU.
