Brain-Computer Interface Controlling Cyborg: A Functional Brain-to-Brain Interface Between Human and Cockroach. In: Guger C, Allison B, Ushiba J, editors. Brain-Computer Interface Research. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2017. pp. 71-9. [DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-57132-4_6]

A Review of Energy Supply for Biomachine Hybrid Robots

Biomachine hybrid robots have been proposed for important scenarios, such as wilderness rescue, ecological monitoring, and hazardous area surveying. The energy supply unit used to power the control backpack carried by these robots determines their future development and practical application. Current energy supply devices for control backpacks are mainly chemical batteries. To achieve self-powered devices, researchers have developed solar energy, bioenergy, biothermal energy, and biovibration energy harvesters. This review provides an overview of research in the development of chemical batteries and self-powered devices for biomachine hybrid robots. Various batteries for different biocarriers and the entry points for the design of self-powered devices are outlined in detail. Finally, an overview of the future challenges and possible directions for the development of energy supply devices used to biomachine hybrid robots is provided.

Biohybrid robots: recent progress, challenges, and perspectives

The past ten years have seen the rapid expansion of the field of biohybrid robotics. By combining engineered, synthetic components with living biological materials, new robotics solutions have been developed that harness the adaptability of living muscles, the sensitivity of living sensory cells, and even the computational abilities of living neurons. Biohybrid robotics has taken the popular and scientific media by storm with advances in the field, moving biohybrid robotics out of science fiction and into real science and engineering. So how did we get here, and where should the field of biohybrid robotics go next? In this perspective, we first provide the historical context of crucial subareas of biohybrid robotics by reviewing the past 10+ years of advances in microorganism-bots and sperm-bots, cyborgs, and tissue-based robots. We then present critical challenges facing the field and provide our perspectives on the vital future steps toward creating autonomous living machines.

Cyborg Moth Flight Control Based on Fuzzy Deep Learning

Cyborg insect control methods can be divided into invasive methods and noninvasive methods. Compared to invasive methods, noninvasive methods are much easier to implement, but they are sensitive to complex and highly uncertain environments, for which classical control methods often have low control accuracy. In this paper, we present a noninvasive approach for cyborg moths stimulated by noninvasive ultraviolet (UV) rays. We propose a fuzzy deep learning method for cyborg moth flight control, which consists of a Behavior Learner and a Control Learner. The Behavior Learner is further divided into three hierarchies for learning the species’ common behaviors, group-specific behaviors, and individual-specific behaviors step by step to produce the expected flight parameters. The Control Learner learns how to set UV ray stimulation to make a moth exhibit the expected flight behaviors. Both the Control Learner and Behavior Learner (including its sub-learners) are constructed using a Pythagorean fuzzy denoising autoencoder model. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach achieves significant performance advantages over the state-of-the-art approaches and obtains a high control success rate of over 83% for flight parameter control.

A review on animal-robot interaction: from bio-hybrid organisms to mixed societies

Living organisms are far superior to state-of-the-art robots as they have evolved a wide number of capabilities that far encompass our most advanced technologies. The merging of biological and artificial world, both physically and cognitively, represents a new trend in robotics that provides promising prospects to revolutionize the paradigms of conventional bio-inspired design as well as biological research. In this review, a comprehensive definition of animal-robot interactive technologies is given. They can be at animal level, by augmenting physical or mental capabilities through an integrated technology, or at group level, in which real animals interact with robotic conspecifics. Furthermore, an overview of the current state of the art and the recent trends in this novel context is provided. Bio-hybrid organisms represent a promising research area allowing us to understand how a biological apparatus (e.g. muscular and/or neural) works, thanks to the interaction with the integrated technologies. Furthermore, by using artificial agents, it is possible to shed light on social behaviours characterizing mixed societies. The robots can be used to manipulate groups of living organisms to understand self-organization and the evolution of cooperative behaviour and communication.