Flying robots with honey bee brains

One day, we may witness swarms of mechanical bees flying around independently. Sounds crazy?

Scientists from the Universities of Sheffield and Sussex in the United Kingdom are working on the “Green Brain Project,” a collaborative effort to produce computer models of a honey bee brain in order to increase knowledge of artificial intelligence (AI) as well as an animal’s thought processes.

The team is creating models of the honey bee’s brain but focusing mainly on the systems that control vision and smell. With this information, the team’s goal is to create the first autonomous flying robot with senses. Their vision is that a robot would not require pre-programming, but rather could act independently using the brain information gathered. Researchers imagine that the robot could one day sniff out gases just as a bee can sniff out varieties of flowers. The goal is to create a real-sized bee brain that is fast enough to control the robot in real time.

Why a honey bee? Although different animals such as rats and monkeys have been subjects of various testing in the past, Green Brain Project leader, Dr. James Marshall, says that “simpler organisms such as social insects have surprisingly advanced cognitive abilities.”

The team is working in conjunction with NVIDIA Corporation, which has provided them with hardware based on high-performance processors called GPU accelerators. These GPU accelerators create 3D graphics on PCs, as well as power high-performance supercomputers. The benefit of using the accelerators is that they efficiently compute massive calculations on a regular PC rather than having to use a supercomputer.

This technology will understand the smaller and easily accessible honey bee brain and will allow for creating a complete and accurate autonomous flying robot. The model can then be used in developing other kinds of brain-modeling projects. These kinds of advancements could be used in instances such as search and rescue missions or mechanical pollination of crops.

Harvard University has also been working on a “Robobees” project based on the mechanical bee concept that could one day be applied to areas such as autonomous pollination, military surveillance, weather mapping, and hazmat detection. They type of technology being developed by the Green Brain Project could benefit projects like Harvard’s Robobees.■