Since 1997, terrestrial cyborg insects have emerged as a promising alternative to insect‐scale artificial robots for real‐world applications, such as urban search and rescue or exploration in complex environments, due to their self‐powered and self‐adaptable organic bodies with naturally integrated sensors. Over the last two decades, this field has been growing rapidly with novel methodologies for locomotion control of living insects and the integration of onboard miniature devices, which have been used not only for environmental data collection but also for unlocking hybrid abilities of insect species. These developments require a range of interdisciplinary expertise from researchers, including both biology and engineering backgrounds. As such, this review aims to provide a comprehensive perspective on the current state of the art through three aspects: locomotion capabilities with corresponding proactive control methods for terrestrial insects, challenges with proposed solutions, and practical applications based on developed projects. With in‐depth analysis and classification of influential studies, this work outlines clear research directions to support the advancement of terrestrial cyborg insect technology toward real‐world deployment and scalable production in the near future.

This paper presents a design of the 1 degree-of-freedom (DOF) compliant mechanism to support rotation, which can be used as the compliant bearing in rotary motor. With the simple idea of replacing the traditional bearings with the compliant counterparts, the compliant motor built by the developed mechanism is capable of creating frictionless and repeatable rotations for precise applications. The compliant bearing is synthesized based on a specific connection of beam-type flexures; its stiffness characteristic is analytically determined in this paper. Finite element analysis (FEA) is then used to verify the analytical results. The correctness of the bearing design is demonstrated through the small deviation between the analytical and FEA methods. With the simple structure of this compliant mechanism, a low-cost flexure-based bearing can be achieved to support rotary motions in precision devices such as actuators, sensors, positioners, etc.

This paper presents the development of a low-cost linear motor with precise – frictionless motion. The motor is constructed by two main modules: Compliant bearing and voice coil actuator (VCA). The mechanical property of the bearing is determined by its 6×6 stiffness matrix which is formulated based on the relationships between beam-type flexure elements within a compliant mechanism. To run the motor, a VCA is specifically designed to fit the desired dimensions and able to create enough input force for compliant bearings to reach their largest elastic deformation. Subsequently, the finite-element-analysis (FEA) is conducted to evaluate the performance of the motor through the simulations of bearing deformation and electromagnetic force from the VCA. The good agreement between analytical and FEA results demonstrates the correctness of the proposed design. With the low-cost due to the simple structure and the ability to produce frictionless motion, the motor presented in this paper can be considered as a potential candidate for the development of various applications in precision engineering field.

Over the past two decades, cyborg insects have emerged as a promising alternative to artificial insect‐scale mobile robots, owing to their low power consumption, resilient biological bodies with naturally integrated sensors, agile locomotion, and self‐adaptability. However, most studies have focused primarily on autonomous control and hardware integration for search‐oriented urban search‐and‐rescue operations following natural disasters such as earthquakes. This raises a crucial next‐step challenge: beyond locating survivors, what life‐saving interventions can cyborg insects perform? Here, we present paramedic cyborg insects (Paraborgs) equipped with a human‐supervised auto‐injection mechanism (AIM) and onboard camera, enabling needle‐based in situ liquid‐drug‐delivery executed by multiple teleoperated cyborg cockroaches. The feasibility of Paraborg is demonstrated through three core innovations: (i) a compact auto‐injection mechanism that launches an injector and delivers liquid drug to a target with an 90% success rate; a robust manual control strategy achieving 100% success in reaching designated checkpoints, 72% success in stabilizing cyborg cockroaches for targeted injection, and up to 95% close‐range injection success within 150 mm of the target; and (iii) teamwork concept with multiple teleoperated cyborg insects for carrying out complex in situ functions. Together, these results demonstrate Paraborg as a prospective platform that extends cyborg insect swarm toward field‐deployable medical intervention.