Insbot: Cockroach Impersonator Robot

Posted 19 Jul 2005 at 18:55 UTC by steve

A short NewScientist.com article describes Insbot, a matchbox-sized robot that has learned to impersonate a cockroach and lives in peace within a colony of real cockroaches. Insbot is controlled by 2 20MHz PIC processors and powered by 2 Swatch motors. Full specs and schematics for Insbot can be found online. In addition to basic behaviors common to robots and cockroaches like wall-following and obstacle avoidance, the robot also knows higher-level cockroach behaviors like aggregation. Insbot is part of the Leurre Project whose goal is building and controlling mixed societies of machines and animals. More photos of Insbot and Alice, another robot that interacts with cockroaches, can be found on the EPFL press site.

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very interesting, posted 20 Jul 2005 at 13:34 UTC by dogsbody_d » (Master)

In my hayfever-induced bleary eyedom, I couldn't find anything about the pheromone side of things.

Great stuff, a lot with a little. Bit restricted in that it kind of relies on the world being as expected I think...