Parasitic Robot Controls Turtle it’s Riding by Giving it Snacks

Developments in the Field of Robotics

Although in recent years,great development has taken place in the field of robotics; the usage of robots still tends to have some limitations. These comprises of their reduced capability of surviving rough routine functions together with the need of providing continuous energy source which does not seem to need recharging.

 Instead nature has shown increased flexibility and progress to the fluctuating situations over millions of years and this has motivated a team of researchers who have now utilised the concept of the flexibility and progress of nature together with robots. Latest experiments carried out by the team of researchers have portrayed that robots could be utilised for controlling turtles through strange parasitic relationship made between the two.

The provision of becoming overlords of the people, robots have now begun controlling turtles. Initially by getting the reptiles to associate a red light with food, the robots with shell-attached tend to dictate where the turtle seems to move in a tank, developing a somewhat strange parasitic relationship.Building their motion adequately strong for surviving the rigours of daily life is aconstantfightas the enigma of providing them with adequate energy to prevent long hours of recharging. This can be done with ease by nature.

Evolution Resulted in Unbelievable Variety of Effective Methods

Millions of years of evolution have resulted in an unbelievable variety of effective methods for animals to move and hence researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology – KAIST, in Daejeon have set about connecting this factor. At first robots had been glued to the backs of five red-eared slider turtles wherein they comprised of a processor, a frame which tends to get stuck out in front of the head of the turtle holding five red LEDs spaced apart together with a food ejecting tube.

Then they had to ride their turtle across five checkpoints in a tank that had been filled with water.The turtles had first been conditioned to associate a lit-up LED with food. The turtles thereafter just guided it utilising the LEDs, feeding it with snacks as a reward for going in the correct direction.

With the use of this procedure, the five robot-turtle pairs had completed the course satisfactorily and each hurried up with training. Dae-Gun Kim at KAIST commented that there were plenty of other animals which could later on also be utilised in giving robots a ride and it would be possible to apply it to several animals like fish and birds as per the purpose of the task.

Harnessing Some of the Motion of Host of Animals

In the near future, Kim along with his colleagues also wanted to be capable of harnessing some of the motion of the host of animal in providing the robot with power. Nathan Lepora at the University of Bristol, UK had informed that these robots could be utilised for surveillance, exploration or any place where there could be a problem for humans or robot to reach on their own.

Earlier insects had been controlled utilising electrodes and radio antennas linked to their nervous systems and this identical approach could present methods for parasitic robots to control their hosts directly. Lepora had commented that there could be definite ethical consideration though if robots and animals were capable of teaming up to explore a disaster are, it could be really useful.