Micro-robots unveiled

spiffy1 writes "A group of Japanese electronics corporations, (Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, and Matsushita) have developed a 5mm by 9mm by 6.5mm robot. These robots will be used to inspect and repair power plants without need for shutdown. They can zoom between tiny pipes and wires at the rate of 2mm per second, lift nearly 1 gram, and link up with other robots to accomplish bigger tasks. "

Comments

tiny robots

[jpowers]

The military applications are frightening. These would be useful for satellite / space station maintenace, get more done with less oxygen and all.

Jason

slashdot more up to date than salon?

[InfinityEdge]

Wow looking at salon's main page and their tech page I cannot find any refrence for this story. It appears that slashdot is linking to salon stories before salon is. Good work guys!

--Chris

Similar to Fractal Shape Changing Robots

[Peter_Thompson]

I forget where I first saw this (it might have been /. I dunno). On Freak Tech, I found the URL for FSCRs (Fractal Shape Changing Robots).

http://www.stellar.demon.co.uk/#introduction

Not quite the same thing, but similar. The FSCRs allow for multiple robots ganging together for more difficult tasks.

I wonder how long those Micro-robot critters can run without power?

unsatisfied.. Neeeeed More innnput....

[drenehtsral]

I found the linked article not very satisfying, does anybody know of a more technical article (i'm more interrested in how they did it)?

Other uses....

[BRock97]

And, if you are constipated, they zoom up other 'pipes' too... er, never mind...

Bryan R.

Did you hear?

[broken]

Sony will be selling a bunch of those as an add-on to their Aibo, so they can have robo-fleas :)

This sounds suspicious.

[Christopher Thomas]

The URL looks legit, but there are a number of practical problems with the robots as described:

• 2mm/sec?
  
  At that rate, they'd move 7.2 metres (23.4 feet) per hour. Power plants and industrial facilities are *big*. Unless you saturate one with bugs, your robots will take days to reach their destinations.
  
  
• Lithium or NiCad?
  
  What's powering these suckers, if they take days to go anywhere? Either one of several unlikely broadcast power schemes is being used, or they're tethered, or they can't go more than a few tens of metres before their batteries run out.
  
  
• What exactly are these supposed to do?
  
  The robots as described would have an interesting time actually fixing anything. Especially on battery power. The most useful application that I can think of would be to use them as remote cameras to see what's going wrong, but there are easier/more practical ways of doing this (put a motorized video camera on a ceiling track, for instance, and use faster tethered robots or just something like a proctoscope for getting into the pipes).
  
  

This is an incomplete list, but you get the idea. IMO, this is either a hoax or else the article has significantly munged many of the details.

Re:This sounds suspicious.

[Christopher Thomas]

What's to stop these guys from sapping small amounts of power directly from the wires themselves? Use the small amount of juice to run around or to charge batteries?

Mainly, the insulation on the wires :).

They could try getting power from the EM radiation given off by the wires, but wires carrying significant amouns of power are usually configured to minimize EMF, as it represents wasted power.

They could run bare wires as power rails for the robots, but that partially defeats the purpose of having the robots in the first place, by limiting their range. It could be done, but IMO if they were going to put in that much effort they'd be better off using other approaches.

An interesting thought, though.

Re:This sounds suspicious.

[craw]

This article is probably based on an AP press release (it was also posted at yahoo). If it is a hoax, then somebody at AP is having a little bit too much fun today. I've checked the MITI, Matsushita, Mitsubishi, and Sumitomo web sites and have found nothing related to this announcement. However, info may be forthcoming in the next few days.

Your skepticism is well taken. I also suspect that the application may be a little far fetched at this time. However, MITI has political and financial powers that should never be underestimated. The Japanese are pursuing the advancement of micro-technology. I remember a time when they also decided to pursue high performance computing. At first, this seem like a joke but it is not a joke anymore.

And know I would like to say something totally non-PC (maybe not). It's an old joke related to how the Japanese have always managed to smaller and smaller items.

Did you hear about the Japanese businessman that just went bankrupt trying to sell miniature dildos?

Cool! they link up!

[Stitchley]

"and link up with other robots to accomplish bigger tasks."

for example, if they're battlng an evil robeast, 5 can join together: 2 arms, 2 legs "and I'll form the head!" I need these.

Form blazing sword!

Re:Cool! they link up!

[ethereal]

I prefer the set where 5 of them form a land team, 5 form an air team, and 5 form a sea team. Then they all split up and all 15 form a robot. They still have a blazing sword, though.

Re:less oxygen?

[Solemn Bob]

>Why would robots be using ANY oxygen?

Even robots need a power source. Most of the ones that need oxygen are wood-burning robots; they were used intensively in the Russian space program until the late 1960's...the universal assemblers went out of control and completely deforested space.

Re:I *HAVE* to agree with Christopher...

[dattaway]

I suppose you could beam a laser at it to supply power. Lasers come in many wavelengths that might efficiently power a tiny solar cell. It could modulate the reflections to return whatever information it would process.

Another means of transmitting power to it could be microwaves. You could have one of its "antennas" modulated by a quartz crystal to reflect information back too.

If there is energy around, there might be good ways to harness it to power the robot. I suppose you could even make a robot that would be happy in a caustic chemical bath too...