Localization of Biobotic Insects Using Low-Cost Inertial Measurement Units

Disaster robotics is a growing field that is concerned with the design and development of robots for disaster response and disaster recovery. These robots assist first responders by performing tasks that are impractical or impossible for humans. Unfortunately, current disaster robots usually lack the maneuverability to efficiently traverse these areas, which often necessitate extreme navigational capabilities, such as centimeter-scale clearance. Recent work has shown that it is possible to control the locomotion of insects such as the Madagascar hissing cockroach (Gromphadorhina portentosa) through bioelectrical stimulation of their neuro-mechanical system. This provides access to a novel agent that can traverse areas that are inaccessible to traditional robots. In this paper, we present a data-driven inertial navigation system that is capable of localizing cockroaches in areas where GPS is not available. We pose the navigation problem as a two-point boundary-value problem where the goal is to reconstruct a cockroach’s trajectory between the starting and ending states, which are assumed to be known. We validated our technique using nine trials that were conducted in a circular arena using a biobotic agent equipped with a thorax-mounted, low-cost inertial measurement unit. Results show that we can achieve centimeter-level accuracy. This is accomplished by estimating the cockroach’s velocity—using regression models that have been trained to estimate the speed and heading from the inertial signals themselves—and solving an optimization problem so that the boundary-value constraints are satisfied.