Cyborg Micro Aerial Vehicle

The US military is spending gobs of cash on developing small planes that soldiers can use to scout enemy territory. These things are tiny – some are around six inches across. They also have limited controllability, limited range, and limited payload. Despite these limitations, I really want one. They’re just so cool!

Anyway, why go to all the trouble of trying to engineer the perfect miniature flying machine, when nature has already done it for us. The power and efficiency of insect flight muscles is astonishing, not to mention their navigational skills despite an almost non-existent brain. Birds are far more complex, but are even more useful for this idea.

In its most radical form, a bird or an insect (cybug) would be fitted with electronics that interface with its nervous system, much like a rat with its brain wired into a computer. The electronics would give high level commands like fly, land, hover, face this direction etc. The animal’s brain would take care of all the mundane, and technically difficult challenges like flying, landing, hovering and looking around.

A soldier on the ground would literally have a birds eye view of what is over the next ridge through a wireless link with the animal. He could use a pocket pc and a small joystick to navigate the bird or insect to wherever he wanted. The uses are endless: visual info, chemical, biological (well, if the bird falls out of the sky, then we know something’s up), auditory (a fly on the wall).

In a more humane (not that the military cares about that) version, birds could be trained, much like dolphins, to perform tasks. Small speakers near the birds ears emit sounds that the bird understands to mean take whatever appropriate action it has been trained to do.

Insects may be a little easier to interface with, and easier to breed and carry (refrigerated).

The electronics is almost here for this application, so the next time a bug lands near you in the park, be careful what you say – it might be bugged.