French researchers succeeded in controlling roaches with their tiny mobile robots. This tiny robot is just little larger than a thumbnail, the cubic insect-like robots are called as "insbots" are fitted with two motors, wheels, a rechargeable battery, several computer processors, a light-sensing camera and an array of infrared proximity sensors.

When dropped into a small experimental area with a maze of curved walls, the robots, build by the project partner from the EPFL (Lausanne), move, turn and stop. They can navigate their way safely by avoiding the walls, obstacles or each other, follow the walls, congregate around a lamp beam or even line up. When placed in the same area with cockroaches, the robots quickly adapt their behaviour by mimicking the animals’ movements. Coated with pheromones taken from roaches, the infiltrator robots even fool the insects into thinking they are real creatures.

The roach pheromones – a blend of molecules developed by the project partner from the Université de Rennes I, France – enable various forms of communication, including recognition and attraction. For example, when a roach detects another roach, it may approach it, move away or stop. Cockroaches were chosen here because their pheromones are easier to manipulate than those found on other gregarious insects, such as ants.


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