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John Connor, Call Your Office: Smart Robot Can Forage for Its Own "Food"
H/T Slashdot by way of InstapunditOk, maybe this is getting a little too close to bringing Terminator-like robots to life. For starters, eco-friendly engine builder Cyclone Power this week inked a contract from Robotic Technologies, Inc. (RTI) to develop what it calls a beta biomass engine system that will be the heart of RTI's Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR). The purpose of EATR is to develop and demonstrate an autonomous robotic platform able to perform long-range, long-endurance missions without the need for manual or conventional re-fueling - in other words it needs to "eat." According to researchers, the EATR system gets its energy by foraging, or what the firms describe as "engaging in biologically-inspired, organism-like, energy-harvesting behavior which is the equivalent of eating. It can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable." I can see it now: One day you walk out to start you car only to find this robot sucking your tank dry. "Sorry, I was hungry," it says." Allowances will definitely be made if the robot looks anything like this. Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) 2009-01-30 |
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