Robots can manipulate animal behavior

And this has some scary implications...




Little larger than a thumbnail, the cubic insect-like robots or ‘insbots’ are technological marvels. Developed under the European Commission’s Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) initiative of the IST programme as the project Leurre, the insbots are fitted with two motors, wheels, a rechargeable battery, several computer processors, a light-sensing camera and an array of infrared proximity sensors.

When dropped into a small experimental area with a maze of curved walls, the robots move, turn and stop. They can navigate their way safely by avoiding the walls, obstacles or each other, follow the walls, congregate around a lamp beam or even line up. When placed in the same area with cockroaches, the robots quickly adapt their behaviour by mimicking the animals’ movements. Coated with pheromones taken from roaches, the infiltrator robots even fool the insects into thinking they are real creatures...


Two side-projects under Leurre also looked at sheep and chickens, animals that are happy to follow their ‘leaders’ – unlike the cockroaches, whose collective behaviour is essentially ‘democratic’. The researchers collected data and developed mathematical models describing the collective behaviour of sheep, such as clustering together in a field. These models have yet to be taken up in a follow-on project, but are scientifically valuable. Adds Deneubourg, “They are a great way of exploring the importance of leadership or collective behaviour in animals, paving the way for people to control animals and even colonies of robots.”



http://www.physorg.com/news66289784.html

they want to figure out how to use it as a weapon.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

other countries do it. But we have to be very careful with the uses of any of this technology . . . unintended consequences and all.