(Image source from: thetimes.co.uk)

The sight of insects can send shivers for many people and especially entomophobias. Most of the humans find insects repulsive because of their speed, shape and colour. Insects can reach the spots where humans and other living creatures cannot reach. A group of researchers developed a robotized cockroach to find survivors in collapsed buildings. They are designed to reach the toughest spots in the collapsed buildings which are hard to access for humans because of the debris and the rubble. Dr Hirotaka Sato from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore worked on robot insects for 15 years.

They used Madagascan hissing cockroaches and designed well into search agents. They are controlled by algorithms that can detect human life or other animals for the sensors that are attached as backpacks and they are not remote-controlled. The backpacks will have a communication chip along with a carbon dioxide sensor and a motion sensor along with an infrared camera. Dr Hirotaka Sato said that they have not limited this to cockroaches and they tested this on ive beetles.

By Siva Kumar