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iRobot Ember Crawling Microbot

The iRobot Ember is a microbot platform for military applications. iRobot Ember is the prototype created for DARPA's LANDroid program, which is intended to create self-healing mesh networks on the fly (or on-the-crawl).


(iRobot Ember microbot)

The robots are intended to be about 1 pound each, be smart enough to detect and navigate around obstacles and ultimately cheap enough to be considered disposable.

[Ember] uses a flipper mechanism for self righting and obstacle climbing and accepts USB and SDIO based payload modules, including radios and sensors.


(iRobot Ember handy three-pack)

The original article mentions "message carriers in Wonder Woman" as an sfnal predecessor to this idea; does anyone know what they are called, what they are, when they appeared?

Take a moment to look over this iRobot Ember video; the autonomous mobile characteristics of this microbot are pretty nice.

From Robot Stock News via Engadget.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 5/18/2009)

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