AIBRIEF
Real cockroaches carry tiny controllers that steer them; this soft waterproof shell, four silicone tubes, and chemical oxygen tank add hours of submerged operation in lab tests.
A Madagascar hissing cockroach carrying a small electronic controller can be steered remotely, the same way a drone is steered. Researchers at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and Waseda University in Japan have now added a 3D-printed "diving suit" to that hybrid, letting it stay submerged for up to three hours in lab tests.
The study, published June 29 in Nature Communications, describes a soft waterproof shell fitted to the insect's back. Four silicone tubes route from a 3D-printed oxygen tank to the cockroach's spiracles, the breathing holes along its thorax, so gas can reach its tracheal system. A manganese-based chemical generator inside the tank releases oxygen on demand.
The team, led by NTU mechanical engineering professor Hirotaka Sato with Waseda co-author Shinjiro Umezu, validated amphibious operation across land and water. The use case is search-and-rescue in flooded disaster zones, where battery-powered microrobots run out of power faster than muscle-driven insects. NTU's release frames the design as a way to extend cyborg insect missions into submerged rubble.
The same lab deployed earlier-generation cyborg cockroaches after the magnitude 7.7 Myanmar earthquake in March 2025, which killed at least 3,700 people. The underwater variant is a lab prototype, and the team writes that the insects "could one day be deployed" in real flood response.