Flying robots disguised as bees? Yeah, right…



“Man your aerosol guns – we’ve got incoming bumblebees!” That could be the battle cry of the future if plans of the U.S. military pan out.

Engineers at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, are attempting to design flying robots disguised as insects to send out on spy missions, according to an Associated Press article.

“The way we envision it is, there would be a bunch of these sent out in a swarm,” said Greg Parker of the project team. “If we know there’s a possibility of bad guys in a certain building, how do we find out? We think this would fill that void.”

The research is being done to downsize the current unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) drones used in Iraq and Afghanistan for surveillance and reconnaissance.

The next generation, called micro aerial vehicles (MAVs), would be as small as bumblebees and able to fly undetected into buildings.

They could photograph, record and even attack the enemy.

Of course, the object is to identify and assault the foe while avoiding civilian casualties, not to mention sparing personnel of the assaulting forces for other duties such as peeling potatoes and cleaning the latrines.

It’s predicted that an intermediate, bird-sized robot could be ready by 2015 and the insect model by 2030.

Both have been the subject of prognosticators in years past.

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 movie “The Birds” showed how a nasty flock of avians can absolutely disrupt a quiet dinner in the sitting room. Those birds got in through the chimney, a la Old Saint Nick.

Predating Hitchcock by several centuries, someone foresaw swarms of grasshoppers in attack mode.

It’s not clear to me if the prophet mistook bumblebees for grasshoppers or if it was just another MAV model he was seeing.

I’m interested in knowing what the MAVs do once they enter the planning room of the enemy.

Do they light on the table strewn with maps or peer down from the ceiling?

What’s to protect them from flyswatters or clouds of Raid? Do their antennae act as, er, antennae?

Will the military send out dozens of MAVs into an area or just a few robots intermingled with actual insects to confuse the enemy? Could a male bumblebee be attracted to a female MAV?

Would a weaponized MAV be a threat after it’s been neutralized by the enemy, sort of like live, unexploded bombs in a combat area?

Could the enemy download information from its tiny hard drive?

How would we expect to use insects for spy operations during the winter months, when everyone knows they’re dormant?

If we can invent these weapons of micro destruction, could we also devise miniature insects to pollinate our fruit trees and flowers?

Is it possible to make robotic insects to infiltrate the carpenter bees eating away at my house?

And finally, do robotic mosquitoes bite?



Larry Penkava, who has written Now and Then since 1994, wonders if those large roaches are spies in disguise.