“If we think about the insect functions that animals can’t do,” said Kevin Chen, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at MIT, “that inspires us to think about what smaller, insect-scale robots can do, that larger robots cannot.” Google is training its robots to be more like humans Most of the advances are in the research phase, years from commercialization.“We start by looking at how insects solve these problems, and we’re making a lot of progress,” said Sawyer B. Fuller, an assistant professor who directs the Autonomous Insect Robotics Laboratory at the University of Washington.While some are experimenting with a hybrid — connecting parts of a live insect, such as an antennae, to a machine robot.The cockroaches could be remote-controlled and released into the rubble with carbon dioxide sensors and cameras on their backs, helping find people that need saving.Jeff Sebo, an animal bioethics professor at New York University, said he worries how live insects might feel being controlled by humans while carrying heavy technology."