Insect-machine hybrid robot.

Recently, insect-machine hybrid robots have been developed that incorporate insects into robots or incorporate machines into insects. Most previous studies were motivated to use the function of insects for robots, but this technology can also prove to be useful as an experimental tool for neuroethology. We reviewed hybrid robots in terms of the closed-loop between an insect, a robot, and the real environment. The incorporated biological components provided the robot sensory signals that were received by the insects and the adaptive functions of the brain. The incorporated artificial components permitted us to understand the biological system by controlling insect behavior. Hybrid robots thus extend the roles of mobile robot experiments in neuroethology for both model evaluation and brain function analysis.