IT BEHAVES like a cockroach. It smells like a cockroach. It is accepted by other cockroaches.

But it is not a cockroach. It is a robot and scientists say that its invention is a breakthrough in mankind’s struggle to control the animal kingdom.

The robot, InsBot, developed by researchers in France, Belgium and Switzerland, is capable of infiltrating a group of cockroaches, influencing them and altering their behaviour.

Within a decade, its inventors believe, it will be leading the unwanted pests out of dark kitchen corners, to where they can be eliminated.

But this is only the first of the applications for a pioneering programme that has got scientists dreaming out loud.

They say that they will soon be using robots to stop sheep jumping off cliffs, to prevent outbreaks of panic among guinea fowl and to encourage chickens to take exercise.

“The idea of using decoys to control animals is very old,” Jean-Louis Deneubourg, of the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research, who is co-ordinating the programme, said. “Hunters and fishermen have used them for many years. The aim of this project is to develop a robot, or a robot-like artefact, capable of integrating and communicating with animals.”

The cockroach research was the first step, Professor Deneubourg said. “Cockroaches are not an objective in their own right. But this shows what it is possible to do.”

The initial task, carried out by the Centre for Research on the Cognition of Animals (CRCA) in Toulouse, France, was to analyse cockroach behaviour. A student spent three years filming the insects and making a computer programme that reproduced their movements. The study showed that cockroaches, like ants, are egalitarian creatures, without a group leader. They congregate as a result of a “collective intelligence” that depends upon interaction within the group.

“Cockroaches like contact with each other. When they meet, they stay still. They are happy to be with a friend for a few moments. The more friends around them, the longer they stay,” the professor said.

The second stage of the €2 million (£1.4 million) programme, called Leurre, was to build a robot capable of detecting cockroaches, of distinguishing them from other objects, of moving like them, and of becoming inactive in the dark.

InsBot, which is green, the size of a matchbox, and equipped with lasers and a light sensor, was developed by Switzerland’s Federal Polytechnic School in Lausanne. When it bumps into a cockroach, it does what they do: it stops moving. The more cockroaches that approach it, the longer it remains stationary.

The third stage, undertaken by the French Centre for Scientific Research’s laboratory in Rennes, Brittany, was to isolate the molecules that give cockroaches their smell — to create a cockroach perfume — and to spray it on to the robot.

“Without the perfume, cockroaches consider InsBot a stranger and run away from it,” Professor Deneubourg said.

Early next year he hopes to publish findings that demonstrate InsBot’s capacity to modify its friends’ behaviour. He is carrying out an experiment that involves placing cockroaches in a space that contains two shelters, one dark, one light. Naturally, they gather in the dark shelter, where they feel comfortable. But if the robots go to the light shelter, cockroaches follow — the desire for companionship proving stronger than the need for dark.

“It is plausible and realistic to imagine that, in five or ten years’ time, people with a cockroach infestation will be buying robots to get rid of them,” Professor Deneubourg said.

Other applications are also envisaged for the computer programmes developed under the Leurre project. Guy Theraulaz, the director of research at the CRCA, says that it may be possible to build chicken-like robots that will be used to stimulate poultry.

“A lot of chickens don’t move at all and die as a result. They need to be encouraged to run around. Robots could do that.”

He is also studying collective panic attacks among guinea fowl. “The idea is to analyse the reasons for the panic and develop sensors to detect when birds start moving abnormally. These sensors would be linked to a computer that would turn the lights on to calm them or something like that,” he said.

Another area of research involves sheep. In mountainous regions when one sheep jumps off a cliff to escape a predator, the others tend to follow — with the result that the whole flock dies. M Theraulaz believes that his team will soon be able to identify flock leaders and give them collars equipped with receivers. They will then train these sheep to stand still — or move — when the receivers emit a signal such as a sound or an electric shock.

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