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Swarm-Bots Take Small Children Away
Swarm-bots (s-bots) have been seen pulling a small child away. You knew this was going to happen sooner or later.
From the website at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne:
And best of all, the swarm-bot-pulling-a-child video:
The s-bot is a fully autonomous mobile robot capable of performing a large number of tasks such as locomotion over rough terrains, perception and manipulation of its surrounding environment through visual and auditory mechanisms, and by grasping of objects using its robotic arms. An s-bot is also able to communicate with other peer units and physically attach to them, thus forming a so-called "swarm-bot". A swarm-bot is capable of performing exploration, navigation and transportation of heavy objects on rough terrains, especially when a single s-bot has major problems at achieving the task alone.
(Swarm-bots cooperate in pulling a small child)
Read this very early quote from Stanislaw Lem's remarkable 1954 novel The Invincible, in which he discusses what we would now term a nanomachine swarm:
"Two types of systems were successful in this evolutionary pattern: first, those that made the greatest progress in miniaturization and then those that became settled in a definite place. The first type were the beginning of these 'black clouds.' I believe them to be very tiny pseudo insects that, if necessary, and for their common good, can unite to form a superordinate system. This is the course taken by the evolution of the mobile mechanisms.
(Read more about Lem's nanomachine swarm)
Now, you're thinking that it's a good idea that Flesh-Eating Robot Research Is Languishing. Either that, or you could finish this story in a different direction, by contemplating these rescue robots:
From S-bots.Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 1/7/2009)
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