What happens when zoologists and a chip engineer meet at a campus cafe? No, this is not a joke, but a project that crosses faculties and schools, which gave birth to a robot with a real ear on a chip, which hears and responds to voices. The defense industry is already expressing interest, and the researchers promise that from here the sky is the limit
What happens when zoologists and a chip engineer meet at a campus cafe? No, this is not a joke, but a project that crosses faculties and schools, which gave birth to a robot with a real ear on a chip, which hears and responds to voices. The defense industry is already expressing interest, and the researchers promise that from here the sky is the limit.
Why a grasshopper?
Prof. Yossi Yuval, from the School of Zoology, ,From the Steinhardt Museum of Nature from the School of Mechanical Engineering At the Ivy and Alder Fleishman Faculty of Engineering וHead of Sagol School of Neuroscience, Prof. Amir Ily, also from the School of Zoology and the Segol School of Neuroscience, and Dr. Ben Maoz From the Faculty of Engineering and the Segol School of Neuroscience, they wanted to know if it was possible to build a bio-hybrid system, which would integrate a biological system inside a robot. The one who picked up the gauntlet is Idan Fishel, who did a master's degree under the guidance of the three researchers and brought the project to a scientific article, recently published in the Sensors newspaper.
For the revolutionary experiment, the researchers chose the ear of a grasshopper, an insect with developed sound and hearing organs. "We wanted to show that we can integrate a biological and electronic system, and the sense of hearing has electrical sensors that are suitable for the task," explains Dr. Maoz. "Insects have auditory systems that are structurally simple, but do complex data processing. At the same time, the system is adaptive, it is lightweight and small in its dimensions, and easier to use than a mammal's ear, for example," adds Idan Fishel, who led the research.
In the research, which lasted for about two years, Netta Shivil - a doctoral student under the joint guidance of the three, Dr. Anton Sheinin and Yoni Amit - also took part.
A listening ear
The researchers isolated a grasshopper's ear. After proving that the system continues to work properly, they built an ear-on-a-chip platform, with which it is possible to receive the signals that reach the ear and make an electro-physiological recording of its activity, and connected it to the robot. The result: when a sound is made, the biological ear hears, just as happens in the human body. The voice signal turns into an electrical signal and reaches the robot, which knows how to react accordingly.
"The sound waves cause the grasshopper's eardrum to move, which activates the mechano-receptors of the grasshopper's ear, similar to the ear hairs that we have. They know how to convert the mechanical vibration into an electrical signal, which goes out through the auditory nerve, reaches the brain and transmits the information," explains Idan. "After we proved that the system continues to work properly, we put it on a chip and placed it on the robot."
The chip that supports the ear was built by the team of researchers with the help of software and a XNUMXD printer. "I had to design a chip that would be modular, so that it could be put on the robot, so that it could sense the electrical activity of the auditory system, and that from a physiological and structural point of view it would match the hearing system of the grasshopper. That is, that it will allow, on the one hand, a watery environment, but on the other hand, it will allow the entry of air and sound waves, similar to how this happens in the animal", Idan details the research process.
The robot was designed and built by Yoni Amit, along with the help of Dr. Anton Shainin. The robot was designed to be modular, and can easily be programmed to respond to different sounds.
Makes room for the ear on the chip. Idan Fishel
A listening bio-hybrid robot
"The main challenge was to turn the existing system into a modular thing. The platform is very small, and the idea is that it would be possible to mount it on something the size of a cell phone", Dr. Maoz, Prof. Yuval and Prof. Ily agree. "Also, the combination of forces between us led to the bridging of 'language gaps' that exist between our research fields, and challenged the students, who agreed to participate in the research and be open to new trends," adds Prof. Ili with a smile.
"It is important to remember that the challenge is enormous. Therefore, when we decided to start, we chose to go for something that is easy to compare to existing systems, such as a microphone or a speaker, but we are sure that the project can be taken to other places, such as the hearing organs of additional insects, smell, sight - other senses where insects have tremendous advantages." says Dr. Maoz.
Since the hybrid field holds great promise, many entities are interested in research. "The next step will include the integration of machine learning, both on the side that reads the biological sensor and on the side that activates the engines. In other words, we will imitate nature in algorithmics as well," reveals Prof. Yuval. "In the future, such a robot will be able to detect explosives or lost people. Maybe there will be swarms of robots, that will talk to each other and each of them will be equipped with sensors, like a good imagination," says Prof. Ily.
"We built a system that is bio-hybrid: it has both biological and electrical components. When this concept of integration works - there is no end to the possibilities. It will be possible to make futuristic applications, such as connecting two ears to a chip for tracking purposes, we can create robots that combine several senses, for example a hearing and vision system on the same robot. It could very well be that even the sky is not the limit", concludes Idan.
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