Ben Epstein's Wi-Fi Roaches

When Ben Epstein sees a cockroach, he’s more likely to get out a circuit board than a can of Raid. Epstein, 57, is a vice president at OpCoast, a defense contractor in Point Pleasant Beach, N.J. For the last few years he’s been using insects—specifically, the death’s head cockroach, a two-inch-long, glossy brown branch of the species—to create wireless networks. The goal is to use the insects to communicate with people trapped in collapsed buildings, mines, and other areas rescuers can’t easily reach. The insects might also conduct surveillance. “These are real bugs that can do bugging,” Epstein says, laughing.

On its belly, each roach carries a dime-size circuit board along with a radio, a microphone, and a battery. The gear, which adds up to two grams, about half the weight of a roach, is still in the prototype phase. As the bugs crawl into crevices and disperse, their microphones pick up sounds, while the radios transmit data via a local-area wireless technology called ZigBee. In the future, the bugs might carry sensors to detect radioactivity or chemicals.