Turkish university’s ‘robot bees’ project honored with award

By Selma Kasap

ANKARA (AA) – Türkiye’s Middle East Technical University (METU) has received an award for developing “robot bees” that can feed their real counterparts, which are under the threat of extinction worldwide, and a system that allows hives to be monitored with artificial intelligence.

METU’s "Roboroyale Project" was selected among the two best projects out of 13 on Friday for the Edge of Government Award at the World Governments Summit held in the United Arab Emirates.

The three-day summit, which was held last week, brought together 25 world leaders and heads of state.

Speaking to Anadolu, Erol Sahin, director of the Center for Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (ROMER) at METU, said the project was initiated two years ago by an international consortium consisting of METU-ROMER, Durham University, Czech Technical University and the University of Graz with a 20-person research and development team.

Sahin said if bees were to disappear, the entire ecosystem would face the threat of collapse.

"With the project, we aim to develop new-generation beehives equipped with the latest technologies," he said.

"As part of the project, we have developed an AI-based system that can monitor the inside of a hive on a 24/7 basis. This allows us to monitor the health of the bees inside the hive, including the queen bee," Sahin noted.

"In addition, we have developed the first prototype of micro-robot bees that mimic worker bees and can externally feed and control the queen bee. With these micro-robot bees, we have succeeded in feeding the queen bee," he said.

“The robot bees also serve the queen bee. Our goal is to eventually have the robots clean, feed and maintain the hive," Sahin said.

He said that with all these systems, their aim is to maintain and even improve the overall health of the hive.

*Writing by Zehra Nur Duz