Osaka, Japan - Cyborg insects combine the mobility of living organisms with miniature electronic devices, offering potential applications in search-and-rescue operations, infrastructure inspection, and exploration of environments that are difficult for conventional robots. However, most autonomous navigation systems are designed to avoid obstacles, even when an insect could naturally climb over them. This can result in longer routes and reduced exploration efficiency.
An international research team from the University of Osaka and Universitas Diponegoro has developed a new navigation system for cyborg insects that combines the cockroach's natural climbing ability with AI-based real-time terrain recognition, enabling the insects to traverse obstacles faster and more efficiently than with conventional navigation methods.
Conventional systems direct cyborg insects around obstacles, even when the insects can climb over them. The team therefore developed a reactive-climbing strategy combining goal-seeking, obstacle avoidance, wall-following, and innate climbing behavior. However, because the controller could not identify terrain, it issued steering commands during climbing, causing hesitation and inefficient movement.
To address this problem, the researchers incorporated a multilayer-perceptron-based AI module that used onboard sensor data to recognize flat surfaces, ascents, descents, and holes in real time. The classifier achieved 92% accuracy in offline evaluation, enabling the controller to adjust stimulation according to the terrain, reduced unnecessary steering, and support sustained forward movement across challenging surfaces.
"The main challenge was to develop a system capable of recognizing terrain in real time without compromising the insect's natural locomotor abilities," explains Professor Keisuke Morishima of the University of Osaka. "In this study, we propose 'biohybrid physical AI' to enable efficient autonomous navigation. We hope these findings will inspire the development of robotic systems capable of operating in complex environments, including search-and-rescue sites."
