Cyborg machine-insects prepare for the battlefields of the future

Article Summary

May 31, 2007 Cyborgs and bionic humans have long been the domain of science fiction with the concept popularised by the seventies TV series, Six Million Dollar Man, about a cyborg working for the OSI. As technological development funded by military spending has accelerated in recent times, we’ve seen the development of the bionic eye, the bionic hand and the bionic arm, with lots of work also being done in the area of exoskeletal robotics to help soldiers run faster and longer and carry heavy loads. Now it appears that we’re about to see the concept of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Cyborgs morph. Whilst UAVs have been among the most successful and high-profile innovations in military technology over the past decade, the arena of unmanned aerial technology is about to become a whole lot stranger as hybrid insect-machine "cyborgs" become a reality. The prospect of a remote controlled dragon-fly capable of transmitting video and other environmental data from the front-line still seems like the stuff of science-fiction, but research into hybrid insect-machines is accelerating under the auspices of DARPA.

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