Insects could one day monitor areas too dangerous for people

Michigan University’s Prof Khalil Najafi, chair of electrical and computer engineering, and doctoral student Erkan Aktakka are finding ways to harvest energy from insects so that they can provide power for the cameras, microphones, sensors and communications equipment carried by situation-monitoring arthropods.

Aktakka told The Engineer that the Michigan energy-scavenging work is part of a collaborative research project that aims to build energy-autonomous neural control systems on insects and to demonstrate the feasibility of using them as remote-controlled micro air vehicles.

‘One of the project goals is to develop technology for effective control over insect locomotion, just as reins are needed for control over horse locomotion,’ said Aktakka. ‘Our collaborators in other universities have showed that this is possible. However, the focus of our research group’s work is to build energy-harvesting systems on insects.’

Aktakka added that the Michigan team aims to leverage the efficiency of biochemical energy storage (fat) and bio-actuators (muscles) compared with traditional chemical energy storage (battery), which is limited in its lifetime and results in a heavy payload on the insect.