Speculative Species

In Speculative Evolution, we envisioned how species could be further developed to increase their resilience based on scientific publications on synthetic biology, genetic engineering and robotics, and formulated text prompts to create AI-generated images using DALL-E. As a result, each speculative species in the environment has a backstory rooted in real-life scenarios.
 
 


Cyborg Beetle
Cyborg Beetles
2020controlled by a switchboard
Laboratory research by Nguyen at al., 2020
2054remote controlled and often sold as ornamental beetle swarm

Lineage of the 7 species from a total of 9

    • Cyborg Beetle, Species 22-1Samsung G955F, Android 9, Zurich, Switzerland (22-1)
      • Cyborg Beetle, Species 22-1-1Samsung G955F, Android 9, Zurich, Switzerland (22-1-1)
        • Cyborg Beetle, Species 22-1-1-1Samsung G955U, Android 9, Schaffhausen, Switzerland (22-1-1-1)
    • Cyborg Beetle, Species 22-2Samsung G955F, Android 9, Zurich, Switzerland (22-2)
      • Cyborg Beetle, Species 22-2-1Samsung G955F, Android 9, Zurich, Switzerland (22-2-1)
      • Cyborg Beetle, Species 22-2-2Samsung G955U, Android 9, , China (22-2-2)
        • Cyborg Beetle, Species 22-2-2-1Samsung G955U, Android 9, Xi'an, China (22-2-2-1)

Sideways Walking Control of a Cyborg Beetle

H. D. Nguyen, P. Z. Tan, H. Sato and T. T. Vo-Doan. in IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 331-337, Aug. 2020, doi: 10.1109/TMRB.2020.3004632.
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9123929

Abstract

Cyborg insect also referred as insect-machine hybrid robot, consists of a living insect platform and an electronic backpack mounted on. The small size and magnificent walking ability of the insect make this hybrid system a potential candidate for search and rescue missions. The great locomotory capability helps the insect to cope with the complex and unpredictable terrains, whereas the tiny dimension allows it to easily enter the debris of post-disaster sites. There is a necessity to establish more controllable mobility for cyborg insects to develop more efficient maneuver plans. Here, this study demonstrates the control of sideways and forward walking in a cyborg beetle by emulating the touch responses of mechanoreceptors on the insect’s elytra using the electrical stimulation. The beetle walked sideways leftward when the right elytron was stimulated, and vice versa. The forward control was attained by stimulating both elytra simultaneously. In addition, these elicited motions were found to be graded by tuning the stimulation frequency as increasing the frequency sped up the sideways walking and slowed down the forward velocity. Besides complementing the controllability of the cutting-edge cyborg insects, this graded response is essential for improving the navigation in cyborg insects for search and rescue missions.
Experimental setup for the electrical stimulation of the elytra. (A) The experiment was conducted on a Styrofoam sheet (0.6x1.2 m 2 ) placed inside the viewable region of four IR cameras (Bonita VICON®). The beetle was wirelessly stimulated using an IR remote control. (B) A Carbon fiber structure carrying three reflective markers was mounted on the insect's back to represent its body. Cartesian coordinates of the three markers captured by the IR cameras were transferred to and stored in a computer for post-experimental analysis. (C) The tracked coordinates were displayed on the interface of the software Vicon Tracker®.