The researchers have developed a small wireless camera that is light enough to be carried by live beetles.
The team at the University of Washington in the US was inspired by insects to create their low-power camera system.
Your beetle can transmit up to five frames per second of low-resolution black-and-white images to a nearby smartphone.
The research was published in the journal Science Robotics.
The entire camera deck weighs in at just 250 milligrams, which is about a tenth the weight of a game card.
While the sensor itself is low-resolution, captures images of only 160 by 120 pixels, it is mounted on a mechanical arm that can be moved from side to side.
This allows the camera to look from side to side and scan the environment, like a beetle, and capture a higher resolution panoramic image.
To conserve battery life, the researchers included an accelerometer in the system, so it only takes photos when the beetle is moving.
In this way, the camera was able to run for six hours on a full charge.
The beetles were undamaged and “lived for at least a year” after the end of the experiment.
The researchers used what they had learned to produce an independent camera robot the size of an insect.
The team claims it is the “smallest autonomous ground robot in the world with wireless vision.”
Instead of wheels, the robot moves by vibrating and can travel about three centimeters per second.
Shyam Gollakota, lead author of the research, acknowledged that small camera robots could pose new surveillance concerns.
“As researchers, we firmly believe that it is really important to put things in the public domain so that people are aware of the risks and so that they can begin to find solutions to address them,” he said.
