Years ago I worked at the Division of Biological Sciences at KU and a researcher developed a 3D Servosphere to help him study cockroaches. He would
do surgery on these big guys (1-1/2 inches long at least) and plant electrodes in the roach brains. Then he would lead them to walk on the treadmill using
pheromones to encourage them. It was all controlled by a DEC PDP-11 mini-computer (size of the phone booths we no longer have either) and everything
was great until the servosphere would go crazy and either fling the roach across the room or get him tangled up in the drive wheels on the underside
of the sphere.
Researchers at North Carolina State University are doing similar work with the computer control of big white moths in flight:
“In the big picture, we want to know whether we can control the movement of moths for use in applications such as search and rescue operations,” says Dr. Alper Bozkurt, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper on the work. “The idea would be to attach sensors to moths in order to create a flexible, aerial sensor network that can identify survivors or public health hazards in the wake of a disaster.”
http://www.electronicproducts.com/Computer...th_cyborgs.aspx
