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Ever wondered what it would be like to ride an actual live beetle? Researchers at University of Washington have designed a wireless, steerable camera that can give a “first person” visual from aboard a beetle or an insect-sized robot and give everyone a chance to see what it is like to be a beetle.
The study, published in Science Robotics on 15 July, has tried to streamline the usage of batteries and reduce the usage of power in small, wide-angle, high-resolution. The camera can stream videos to a smartphone at 1 to 5 frames per second, sits on a mechanical arm that can rotate upto 60 degrees that allows the viewer to capture a panoramic view while using minimal amount of energy.
One of the senior authors of the study, Shyamnath Gollakota told University of Washington News, “We have created a low-power, low-weight, wireless camera system that can capture a first-person view of what’s happening from an actual live insect or create vision for small robots.”
“Vision is so important for communication and for navigation, but it’s extremely challenging to do it at such a small scale. As a result, prior to our work, wireless vision has not been possible for small robots or insects,” the associate professor at Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering added.
Taking inspiration from nature, the team decided to use tiny, ultra-low-power black-and-white camera that swept the field with the help of the mechanical arm. The arm can be bent at a desired position by applying a high voltage.
Sawyer Fuller, co-author and assistant professor of mechanical engineering said, “Similar to cameras, vision in animals requires a lot of power. It’s less of a big deal in larger creatures like humans, but flies are using 10 to 20% of their resting energy just to power their brains, most of which is devoted to visual processing. To help cut the cost, some flies have a small, high-resolution region of their compound eyes. They turn their heads to steer where they want to see with extra clarity, such as for chasing prey or a mate. This saves power over having high resolution over their entire visual field.”
The movable camera has enabled the researchers to reduce the consumption of power. A moving object can be tracked by moving the mechanical arm instead of moving the entire robot. The images are also at a higher resolution than wide-angle lens, which would consume more power as it would spread over a larger area, Vikram Iyer, co-author and a doctoral student of electrical engineering said.
The camera and arm are controlled via Bluetooth which has a range of about 120 metres which is little longer than an american football field.
Weighing about 250 milligrams, the cameras can be attached to two different species of beetles—a death feigning beetle and a Pinacate beetle, the study showed.
“We made sure the beetles could still move properly when they were carrying our system,” said co-lead author Ali Najafi, another doctoral student in electrical and computer engineering. “They were able to navigate freely across gravel, up a slope and even climb trees.”
The beetles also lived for at least a year after the experiment ended.
The researchers added a small accelerometer so that their systems could detect movement and captures images only during that time. This extended the battery life up to six hours.
Acknowledging the new set of privacy risks, the researchers said that it is important to put out things in public domain so that people are aware of the risks and can come up with solutions to address them.
This new technology could be useful in fields of biology and to explore new environments. The team said that they are hopeful that future versions of the camera will require lesser power and be reliant on solar power
Iyer added, “This is the first time that we’ve had a first-person view from the back of a beetle while it’s walking around. There are so many questions you could explore, such as how does the beetle respond to different stimuli that it sees in the environment? But also, insects can traverse rocky environments, which is really challenging for robots to do at this scale. So this system can also help us out by letting us see or collect samples from hard-to-navigate spaces.”
The research was co-authored by Vikram Iyer, Ali Najafi, Jahannes james, Swayer Fuller and Shyamnath Gollakota and funded by a Microsoft fellowship and the national Science Foundation.