Remote-controlled cockroach swarm can now breathe underwater

Remote-controlled cockroach – Researchers at Nanyang Technological University have built 3D-printed diving suits that let remotely controlled cyborg Madagascar hissing cockroaches breathe underwater for up to three hours. The team previously demonstrated remote control in 2021 and coordina

By the time the cockroaches start moving underwater, the hard work is already done—down to where the researchers placed the oxygen.

In experiments coming out of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. swarms of remotely controlled cyborg insects can now operate underwater thanks to tiny diving suits that supply oxygen. The oxygen isn’t pumped in through a pressurised tank. Instead. the suit uses a chemical reaction to generate it—because for a small creature that breathes through openings in its body. water is the problem that never truly waits its turn.

The work builds on results first demonstrated in 2021. when Hirotaka Sato and his colleagues showed that Madagascar hissing cockroaches (Gromphadorhina portentosa) could be controlled remotely using electrodes embedded in sensory organs called cerci. In 2024, they then demonstrated that a swarm of 20 of these cyborg insects could coordinate.

The goal has never been novelty. Sato’s team is trying to develop biological robots equipped with infrared sensors that could be released in large numbers after natural disasters to search for survivors. Cockroaches. they argue. are a ready-made platform: they carry their own fuel source. move efficiently at a tiny scale. and rely on reflexes for dodging obstacles—capabilities mechanical systems still struggle to replicate in such small forms.

But floods change the rules. “Sato and his team were unhappy with the insects’ inability to search flooded areas, which aren’t uncommon in disaster zones,” the research describes, prompting a shift toward underwater operation.

Cockroaches breathe through pores called spiracles on their abdomen and thorax. To protect those breathing openings from the surrounding water, the researchers 3D printed a watertight resin suit. Tiny hoses run forwards from the suit to connect directly to the thorax spiracles. Covering the thorax fully would interfere with leg movement. so the suit’s design had to stay practical for walking—even while it sealed the abdominal spiracles from water.

Supplying oxygen required a different approach than scuba. Rather than using a pressurised oxygen tank, the researchers included a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and manganese dioxide. When the chemicals react, the hydrogen peroxide decomposes to produce oxygen that the cockroach can absorb.

With the suits on, the animals could walk underwater for up to 3 hours at a time, at depths of up to 50 centimetres, and the effects weren’t fleeting. All five insects monitored after wearing the suits were still healthy three days later.

And the movement wasn’t just functional—it looked surprisingly natural. On land, the suit-wearing cyborg insects achieved an average forward speed of 87.5 millimetres per second. Underwater, that slowed to 78.4 millimetres per second.

Sato says the diving suits could make search-and-rescue cyborg insects far more capable. But his ambition goes past rescue zones with muddy water. He hopes the same principle—keeping biological machines alive in environments without the oxygen they normally rely on—could translate to space.

“The ultimate goal is to [take this technology to] space,” Sato says. “It’s kind of one step, one big step, towards space suits for cyborg insects. Exploration over the Mars surface, for example.”

To get there, the team intends to test the cockroach suits in harsh conditions they could encounter in orbit or on the surface of a planet like Mars: very low and high temperatures, a vacuum, and intense radiation exposure.

Yet that pathway has a serious complication. Space agencies may not welcome the idea of sending cockroaches to Mars because of the risk of contaminating the planet with microbes from Earth.

Not everyone reacts with skepticism at the science itself. Alan Winfield at the University of the West of England says the idea of scuba-diving cockroaches may seem strange. but it has obvious applications. including environmental monitoring. He points to a constraint that often limits the smallest robots: energy.

“There have been attempts to build very small robots, but the problem is batteries. With a very small robot, you typically don’t get very much battery life,” Winfield says. “People often used to say to me, what are the three big problems in mobile robots? And I’d say: energy, energy and energy.”

Cockroaches, he argues, offer something engineers can’t easily copy. They are vastly more efficient than robots and can operate for longer without refuelling. They can also forage for their own food in the wild and operate almost indefinitely.

For now. the diving suit is the bridge—from a system that can be controlled and coordinated to one that can survive where oxygen isn’t where it should be. Whether the next bridge leads to flooded disaster sites or to the thinner air of space. the underlying challenge remains the same: how to keep a living robot breathing long enough to do the job.

cyborg cockroaches diving suits underwater robotics Mars exploration Nanyang Technological University infrared sensors cerci electrodes hydrogen peroxide manganese dioxide search and rescue environmental monitoring remote-controlled swarm