First there were cyborg rats. Then came electroneural Shark and Awe. All part of DARPA’s ongoing effort to weaponize the animal kingdom, which is all part of DARPA’s ongoing effort to weaponize everything, including the weather. But for now, let’s stick to animals. After all, Operation Acoustic Kitty was such a success, right? That was when the CIA surgically implanted microphones in a cat for a biosurveillance rudimentary cyborg in the 1960s. The idea was release a bunch of these things in the Kremlin, and let the intelligence roll in! Upon release for testing, the prototype was immediately run over by a car. (A clandestince CIA clean-up crew came to get the remains so as to keep this high stakes weapon system out of the hands of those clever, reverse-engineering soviets.) The problem with Operation Acoustic Kitty? Not the idea. The failure was one of imagination and technology: we couldn’t control its mind. The Spy Kitty was ahead of its time.
This is always the rub with military planners. So many great ideas just beyond our reach. Well, thankfully the miracle of science has finally brought a whole array of cyborg spy creatures closer to reality. The latest:
Two papers being presented at ISSCC reveal the latest initiatives in the DARPA-sponsored Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (HI-MEMS) project, which is currently in its third year. The program’s goal is the creation of moths or other insects that have electronic controls implanted inside them, allowing them to be controlled by a remote operator. The animal-machine hybrid will transmit data from mounted sensors, which might include low-grade video and microphones for surveillance or gas sensors…
Beetles and bees have already joined the robot armada, and now moths, making good on what Air Force 2025, a master document composed of theoretical systems to help the US maintain “Global Battlespace Dominance,” delightfully called Concept No. 900481: Destructo Swarmbots. When they came up with that one, they meant robots that acted like insects. But why build a million insect-like robots when you can just roboticize a million insects? See — work hard and put your mind to it and dreams can come true! As my brother Ethan pointed out, all they need now is a classic DAPRA acronym, like H.I.V.E. or S.T.I.N.G. Although, I am somewhat tickled by the fact that that one of the reasons the swarmbots might not reliably work is that they 1) may be too sex-crazed to follow orders, and 2) might be unable to resist the desire to fly their integrated system selves into the proverbial flames. How’s that for a military metaphor?
