Embedded Bugs

March 23, 2006 -- -- Recruiting six-legged creatures to fill the ranks of the U.S. armed forces is the latest idea coming from the Pentagon.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is calling on scientists from all disciplines to pool their expertise to create "insect cyborgs," or electromechanical insects, to be used in areas inaccessible or hostile to humans.

"The goal of the program is to develop these electronic systems that could be integrated into the insect, demonstrate that you could actually create that interface reliably in an insect, and demonstrate that you can use the electronics that's been embedded in the insect to control the locomotion of the insect," explained Jan Walker, the spokesperson for DARPA.

According to the solicitation on the agency's Web site, the creation of insect cyborgs would incorporate the technology of MEMS, or micro-electro-mechanical systems. DARPA advises implanting these micro systems into the insect during an early metamorphic stage. By doing so, the device has the greatest chance of getting assimilated into the insect's physiology.

"The beauty of it is that at the end of the larvae stage, the insect has a new skeleton," said John Ewer, an associate professor of entomology at Cornell University.

The DARPA document says this renewal process is characteristic of each metamorphic stage and allows an insect to "heal wounds and reposition internal organs around foreign objects."

"We have done preliminary experiments that have shown that microelectronics embedded in insects, in the larvae stage, can co-exist with the insect, and it can have a pretty normal life cycle," said Ephrahim Garcia, who works in the Laboratory for Intelligent Machine Systems at Cornell University. But, he cautioned, "It just can't take up too large a percentage of the body cavity."

DARPA's call for proposals requires three final demonstrations of this integration of a micro system in an insect. The insect cyborg must be remotely delivered to a location five meters from a specific target. Once delivered, it "must remain stationary either indefinitely or until otherwise instructed." Finally, it must have the capability "to transmit data from Department of Defense-relevant sensors," thereby giving a read on its surrounding environment.