Robotic roaches influenced real ones, in a recent experiment, getting them to change their collective behavior and make decisions against their better instincts.
The experiment, who's findings were published in today's issue of Science, set to test robot autonomous systems coupled with animal group behavior.
Cockroaches were placed in an area with two different shelters and, as a whole, naturally gravitated to the darker one.
The scientists then replaced four roaches with robots equipped with light detecting sensors, programmed to choose the lighter shelter.
60 percent of the time the real roaches shifted group behavior, following the robots into the light, although in 40 percent of the tests, the robots succumbed to peer pressure joining the insects.
The robots did not resemble real roaches – they looked more like tiny trucks said Scientific American – but were doused with a cockroach sex hormone.
Jose Halloy, a biology researcher and lead author of the journal paper, said his team chose roaches for their simplicity. Unlike bees or ants, said the New York Times, roaches also operate democratically, with no leader insect dictating community behavior.
The experiment – which studied animal self-organizational patterns collaborating with machines -- combined “entomology, robotics and the study of ways that complex and even intelligent patterns can arise from simple behavior,” said the New York Times.
The paper reports that the team will continue its research, next time with a robotic chicken. Researcher's will examine chick behavior – known to follow the first creature they see after hatching – with a false robotic mother.
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