Swarms of Solar-Powered Microbots On the Way

Mike writes to tell us that Inhabitat has an interesting article, complete with some pretty pictures, about a new solar-powered swarm robot that could be used to collect data and aid in surveillance. "These mini-robots are quite revolutionary, considering that they contain all that's necessary to collect data and relay it back using one single circuit board. In the past single-chip robots have presented significant design and manufacturing challenges due in part to the use of solder as an adhesive. These new microbots use conductive adhesive to attach the components to a double-sided flexible printed circuit board using surface mount technology. The circuit is then folded into thirds and wrapped around the ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit). On top, a solar cell generates power for the robot and delivers 3.6 V to the unit, which is enough for it to walk. Locomotion is achieved via three vibrating legs, while a fourth horizontal vibrating leg is used as a touch sensor."

Comments

Re:apart from ...

[Architect_sasyr]

I have a solar calculator that works just fine under lights at night (with the dead battery removed). Why couldn't something this small draw enough power from overhead fluro's?

Impressive

[A. B3ttik]

These things look like something right out of a science-fiction movie. I wonder how expensive they are to produce? They look light enough that you could literally spray them from a passing plane to gather intel on a suspicious site.

New grey goo milestone

[Anonymous Coward]

The ultimate way to stop any physical machine nowadays is to cut off its power supply. The ability to configure swarm-based robots that use their own powers is a new milestone at creating a potentially unstoppable force.

Grey-goo requirements checklist:

1. Decentralized: check
2. Self-sustaining: check
3. Adaptable: not yet but can be potentially achieved with sufficiently complex programming
4. Self-replicating: not yet, our last bastion of hope

What a good thing it is that robots can't fsck... yet.

Re:New grey goo milestone

[mcgrew]

I'm tired of hearing someone shout... "skynet!" every time there is some advance in... AI

My fear isn't that machines will become sentient (at least not machines controlled by binary electrical computers), but that people will BELIEVE that these machines, which will be controllable by men, are in fact sentient and grant "machine rights" or some such nonsense.

When will they be put to good use?

[Runaway1956]

Bring the cost down to near nothing, make them self replicating, then foist them off to agriculture. Since they use nice clean energy, they can replace tractors in planting and harvesting. In between those activities, they can tend the crop. Enough of these little dudes can monitor individual plants for disease, then treat or remove affected plants. Monitor and regulate moisture for maximum effect at each plant. Heck, they could even pollinate plants since the honeybee population has been devastated in recent years.

If I had a zillion little microbots or nanobots, I could find a LOT of better uses than spying on my neighbor. My neighbors are pretty damned homely anyway, I don't WANT to watch them doing whatever they do when I can't see them!