Earlier, engineers had developed cockroach robots that could help humans by improving search and rescue efforts in emergency situation. Those robots could be controlled by using tiny wireless transmitters, which further could be controlled by humans. The robots have the ability to travel the locations where humans cannot go.

Now, a new study has looked into doing the same thing with beetles. The remote-controlled cyborg beetle has the ability to provide the same kind of results as cockroach robots. According to reports, researchers from the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have developed the remote-controlled cyborg beetle by installing a tiny backpack over a giant flower beetle.

According to the researchers, “We could easily add a small microphone and thermal sensors for applications in search-and-rescue missions. With this technology, we could safely explore areas not accessible before, such as the small nooks and crevices in a collapsed building”.

Dr. Hirotaka Sato, a researcher from the Nanyang Technological University, said that in previous studies on insect, researchers found that it was not easy to know the role of an insect’s smaller muscles play in the act of light.

According to Sato, it was supposed that the coleopteran muscle functions solely in the wing folding. The wireless system developed by the researchers recorded neuromuscular movements in natural, free flight. Now, the researchers have found that the muscle could be used for turning, Sato explained.

Sato said the technology could be used as an alternative to remote-controlled drones and can reach inaccessible areas in rescue missions. The research has been published in the journal Current Biology. The six centimeters long giant flower beetle could lift items such as small microphone and thermal sensor. Sato said that further research is needed to improve the beetles’ remote-controlled turns.