Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a
combination of software and hardware that will allow them to use
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and insect cyborgs, or biobots, to map
large, unfamiliar areas – such as collapsed buildings after a disaster.
"The
idea would be to release a swarm of sensor-equipped biobots – such as
remotely controlled cockroaches – into a collapsed building or other
dangerous, unmapped area," says Edgar Lobaton, an assistant professor of
electrical and computer engineering at NC State and co-author of two
papers describing the work.
"Using remote-control technology, we would restrict the movement of
the biobots to a defined area," Lobaton says. "That area would be
defined by proximity to a beacon on a UAV. For example, the biobots may
be prevented from going more than 20 meters from the UAV."
The biobots would be allowed to move freely within a defined area and
would signal researchers via radio waves whenever they got close to
each other. Custom software would then use an algorithm to translate the
biobot sensor data into a rough map of the unknown environment.
Once the program receives enough data to map the defined area, the
UAV moves forward to hover over an adjacent, unexplored section. The
biobots move with it, and the mapping process is repeated. The software
program then stitches the new map to the previous one. This can be
repeated until the entire region or structure has been mapped; that map
could then be used by first responders or other authorities.
"This has utility for areas – like collapsed buildings – where GPS
can't be used," Lobaton says. "A strong radio signal from the UAV could
penetrate to a certain extent into a collapsed building,
keeping the biobot swarm contained. And as long as we can get a signal
from any part of the swarm, we are able to retrieve data on what the
rest of the swarm is doing. Based on our experimental data, we know
you're going to lose track of a few individuals, but that shouldn't
prevent you from collecting enough data for mapping."
Co-lead author Alper Bozkurt, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State, has previously developed functional cockroach biobots.
However, to test their new mapping technology, the research team relied
on inch-and-a-half-long robots that simulate cockroach behavior.
In their experiment, researchers released these robots into a
maze-like space, with the effect of the UAV beacon emulated using an
overhead camera and a physical boundary attached to a moving cart. The
cart was moved as the robots mapped the area.
"We had previously developed
proof-of-concept software that allowed us to map small areas with
biobots, but this work allows us to map much larger areas and to stitch
those maps together into a comprehensive overview," Lobaton says. "It
would be of much more practical use for helping to locate survivors
after a disaster, finding a safe way to reach survivors, or for helping
responders determine how structurally safe a building may be.
"The next step is to replicate these experiments using biobots, which we're excited about."
An article on the framework for developing local maps and stitching
them together, "A Framework for Mapping with Biobotic Insect Networks:
From Local to Global Maps," is published in Robotics and Autonomous Systems.
An article on the theory of mapping based on the proximity of mobile
sensors to each other, "Geometric Learning and Topological Inference
with Biobotic Networks," is published in IEEE Transactions on Signal and Information Processing over Networks.
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