Sound is the best way to find survivors after a disaster and with new technology being developed at North Carolina State University, emergency personnel could one day be assisted by cyborg cockroaches. These cyborg cockroaches or biobots, are equipped with an electronic backpack that contains a small microphone to hear sounds and then find the source of the sound.
The researchers developed two different types of microphone backpacks. One uses a single microphone that captures sound from any direction and wirelessly transmits it to emergency personnel. The other biobot uses an array of three directional microphones to detect the direction of the sound to allow the biobot to move closer to the direction of where the sound is coming from. An invisible fence technology was also developed to contain the biobots within the disaster area and in the range of other biobots to create a reliable mobile wireless network.
