U.S.-China Surveillance

MIT’s Technology Review recently wrote about a new surveillance technology being developed at Harvard in which miniature robots the size of horse flys can be used to conduct remote reconnaissance. This is amazing enough, but the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which funds this research, has far more advanced technology up its sleeve, the cyborg insect surveillant. Dr. Amit Lal, manager of DARPA’s Hybrid Insect MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical system) program, believes that building insect robots from scratch would be a waste of millions of years of evolution. Instead, Lal’s project hopes to develop a method for embedding micro-mechanical systems into the tissue of the insect early in its development, at the caterpillar or larvae stage, for example. “Since a majority of the tissue development in insects occurs in the later stages of metamorphosis, the renewed tissue growth around the MEMS will tend to heal, and form a reliable and stable tissue-machine interface.”

The HI-MEMS, as they are called, are expected to have numerous applications:

The goal of the MEMS, inside the insects, will be to control the locomotion by obtaining motion trajectories either from GPS coordinates, or using RF, optical, ultrasonic signals based remote control. The control of locomotion will be investigated using several approaches. These include direct electrical muscle excitation, electrical stimulation of neurons, projection of ultrasonic pulses simulating bats, projection of pheromones, electromechanical stimulation of insect sensory cells, and presentation of optical cues with micro-optical visual presentation. The intimate control of insects with embedded microsystems will enable insect cyborgs, which could carry one or more sensors, such as a microphone or a gas sensor, to relay back information gathered from the target destination.

The full range of programs underway at DARPA’s Microsystems Technology Office (MTO) is worth perusing, including such gems as “Chip-to-Chip Optical Interconnects” and “Cognitively Augmented Design for Quantum Technology.”