iRobot, who brought us the Roomba and friends, have now devised a ball-shaped, undulating "chembot" under the auspices of -- who else -- DARPA. The lovable machine resembles something you might find on a surreal dim sum platter: a pale, doughy blob that changes shape, inflates, deflates, and will ultimately be able to squeeze through tiny cracks in pursuit of its target.
Last year, DARPA gave iRobot $3.3 million to work on the morphing chembot, saying "We believe that a new class of soft, flexible, meso-scale mobile objects that can identify and maneuver through openings smaller than their dimensions to perform various tasks will be quite valuable in many missions."
The bot, which was shown off at the EEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems this week, has a silicone skin, and moves by selectively inflating and deflating parts of its spherical body. But the locomotion system entails more than simple puffing and rolling: The video explains the "particle jamming" system of locomotion, "a mechanism by which material can transition from a liquid-like to a solid-like state."
#2
@Li3n
See, and you all said i was crazy building that bunker at an undisclosed location then killing all the people that knew where it was... who's crazy now...
#3
Bowielee
Yeah, that's not creepy or anything.... :O
#4
phil
One day, someone will post about robots and not make a terminator joke. That's when I'll know that they've really taken over.
#5
SpecialKO
It actually made me think more about Rover from the Prisoner.
#6
Shakey
The real question is, how long before it is used as a sex bot?
It already has. That's why there's so much liquid in its liquid state.
#8
Hylian
Well I guess it's time to move. I was at a pizza shop yesterday and they had a piece of paper on the wall signed by a woman with the name Sarah Connor.
