By Gary Kitchener
BBC News
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The
Pentagon's defence scientists want to create an army of
cyber-insects that can be remotely controlled to check out
explosives and send transmissions.
The idea is to insert micro-systems at the pupa stage, when the
insects can integrate them into their body, so they can be remotely
controlled later.
Experts told the BBC some ideas were feasible but others seemed
"ludicrous".
A similar scheme aimed at manipulating wasps failed when they
flew off to feed and mate.
The new scheme is a brainwave of the Defence Advanced Research
Projects Agency (Darpa), which is tasked with maintaining the
technological superiority of the US military.
It has asked for "innovative" bids on the insect project from
interested parties.
'Assembly-line'
Darpa believes scientists can take advantage of the evolution of
insects, such as dragonflies and moths, in the pupa stage.
"Through each metamorphic stage, the insect body goes through a
renewal process that can heal wounds and reposition internal organs
around foreign objects," its proposal document reads.
 |
DARPA SCHEMES
Arpanet information processing system - a
precursor to the internet
Self Healing Minefield - the mines reconfigure
themselves to fill gaps when one or more are stepped on
Brain Interface Programme to wire soldiers
directly into their machines
Mechanical Elephant to penetrate dense Vietnam
War jungle. Unused
Policy Analysis Market - online futures market
where "traders" wager on future terrorism and
assassinations
Computer game, Tactical Iraqi, to teach troops
how to decipher Iraqi body
language |
The foreign objects it suggests to be implanted are specific
micro-systems - Mems - which, when the insect is fully developed,
could allow it to be remotely controlled or sense certain chemicals,
including those in explosives.
The invasive surgery could "enable assembly-line like fabrication
of hybrid insect-Mems interfaces", Darpa says.
A winning bidder would have to deliver "an insect within five
metres of a specific target located 100 metres away".
The "insect-cyborg" must also "be able to transmit data from
relevant sensors, yielding information about the local environment.
These sensors can include gas sensors, microphones, video, etc."
'Fiction'
Scientists who spoke to the BBC news website were unconvinced.
Entomology expert Dr George McGavin of the Oxford University
Museum of Natural History said the idea appeared "ludicrous".
"Not all wacky ideas are without value. Some do produce the
goods. My feeling is this will probably not produce the goods," he
said.
 |
ANIMALS IN WARFARE
WWII: Attach a bomb to a cat and drop
it from a dive-bomber on to Nazi ships. The cat, hating water,
will "wrangle" itself on to enemy ship's deck. In tests cats
became unconscious in mid-air
WWII: Attach incendiaries to bats.
Induce hibernation and drop them from planes. They wake up,
fly into factories etc and blow up. Failed to wake from
hibernation and fell to death
Vietnam War: Dolphins trained to tear
off diving gear of Vietcong divers and drag them to
interrogation, sources linked to the programme say. Syringes
later placed on dolphin flippers to inject carbon dioxide into
divers, who explode. US Navy has always denied using mammals
to harm humans |
"What adult insects want to do is basically reproduce and lay
eggs. You would have to rewire the entire brain patterns."
Dr McGavin said it appeared impossible to connect the technology
to the right places during the metamorphic phase, particularly with
regard to flight.
Prof Andrew Parker, research leader at the Natural History
Museum's zoology department and a specialist in bio-mimetics, said
the concept was not too far fetched but had its limits.
Technology could help direct an insect to chemicals such as in
roadside bombs, he said, but controlling full flight was "a long way
off".
Entomology expert at the museum, Stuart Hine, agreed it was
plausible to use insects to detect explosives.
But he added: "I feel that the reality of such cyborg fusion
between insect and machine lies squarely in the realms of fiction."
To receive micro-signals from the insects would require a dish
"quite close and several feet in diameter, rendering it a less than
covert operation".
Darpa's previous experiments to get bees and wasps to detect the
smell of explosives foundered when their "instinctive behaviours for
feeding and mating... prevented them from performing reliably", it
said.
Darpa was founded in 1958 to keep US military technology ahead of
Cold War rivals.
Its website says it has around 240 personnel and a $2bn (£1.1bn)
budget. Supporters say much of its work has been successful, but it
has also drawn criticism for unusable "blue-sky" projects.
A former director said in 1975: "When we fail, we fail big."