Spy turtles? Not in the near future

Spy turtles? Not in the near future

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Turtle spy robots are coming. Scientists in South Korea have developed a technology that they claim will enable to use live turtles for intelligence gathering missions.
8780922_sThe though behind the effort is simple – why develop a robot from scratch I you have a living platform instead.
While some robot-makers have drawn inspiration from the animal kingdom, others have quite literally used animals as starter kits, exploiting their natural intelligence and mechanics that have taken millions of years to evolve. Engineers have previously created part-robot insects like cockroaches , moths, beetles with electrical implants that poke at the critters’ neural circuits or muscles to control them.
But the new study on turtles took a less invasive approach. The team of researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) showed they could direct a turtle’s voluntary movements with a remote-controlled prosthetic that would simulate objects in its way.
“These experiments demonstrate that animal behavior can effectively be guided by evoking instinctive behavior essential for survival,” the researchers wrote in an article detailed online April 17 in the journal PLOS ONE .
Animals enhanced with robot parts also could be recruited for tasks that aren’t so easy for humans, such as exploring the deep seas or surveying a disaster zone. But we might be a long way from seeing turtles . The South Korean team says its final goal of building a device that’s ready for the real world comes with a host of challenges among them, miniaturizing and waterproofing the animal attachment, as well as equipping it with viable telecommunication and navigation capabilities.

i-HLS ISRAEL Homeland Security