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DARPA Planning Liquid Robots

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wed Apr 04, 2007 08:13 AM
from the where-is-sarah-conner dept.
Robotics Science
moon_monkey writes "According to New Scientist, Darpa is soliciting proposals for so-called Chemical Robots (ChemBots) that would be soft, flexible and could manoeuvre through openings smaller than their static structural dimensions. They suggest that it could be made from shape-memory materials, electro- or magneto-rheological materials or even folding components."
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  • *Holds up picture of John Connor*
  • And don't forget the requisite interface to SkyNet.

  • Artificial muscle required (Score:3, Informative)

    by LiquidCoooled (634315) on Wednesday April 04 2007, @08:16AM (#18603449) Homepage Journal
    The small creatures discussed can only get through places where their bone structure allows.
    Its inpractical for a mouse to get through somewhere that involves breaking its own bones (unless a mouse is chasing it!).
    Make boney robots with flubber muscles and batteries and you are onto a winner.
    No flex required in the skeleton.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Torvaun (1040898)
      Why should it be a mouse? If we compare it to a shark, we've got much more flexible cartilage. Such a robot might be capable of passing through spaces smaller than the smallest dimension of the largest structural member. Even better would be if we went with an amoeba or something similar, where there are no bones at all, merely controlled motive forces. Are there any engineering specialists around to tell me if there's any good way to do something like that?

      • Re:Artificial muscle required (Score:4, Funny)

        by Elemenope (905108) on Wednesday April 04 2007, @11:28AM (#18607109)

        Even better would be if we went with an amoeba or something similar, where there are no bones at all, merely controlled motive forces. Are there any engineering specialists around to tell me if there's any good way to do something like that?

        Yes. Hire an amoeba.

          • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

            by amRadioHed (463061)
            I believe DNA is the preferred programming language. But be warned the amoeba specs are more complicated than C++, they have the largest known genome of any creature.

  • Usage (Score:3, Funny)

    by Chris whatever (980992) on Wednesday April 04 2007, @08:18AM (#18603473)
    I would by a door made out of this material and it would slap solicitors whenever they knock at my door.

  • When someone asks what crawled up your ass..... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Chineseyes (691744) on Wednesday April 04 2007, @08:19AM (#18603511)
    Now when someone asks what crawled up your ass they might be very serious.

  • Call the Governator (Score:3, Funny)

    by roman_mir (125474) on Wednesday April 04 2007, @08:43AM (#18603909) Homepage
    The Governator Arnold must be notified immediately, his presence in our world was not in vain. He will still have his fight before he is 120.

  • NO YOU FOOLS! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Geekfather (1012353) on Wednesday April 04 2007, @08:44AM (#18603921)
    YOU'VE KILLED US ALL!!!
  • What, it only takes 40 years for the DoD to pick up on cheesy B-grade sci fi movies?

    I always really liked the skit about the "Snit" - scientists supposedly create an organism that is comprised of the perfect form of protein.

    Interviewer: "What does it look like?"
    Scientist: "Kind of like guacamole, with eyes."

    and a bit later on...

    Scientist: "The only problem is we haven't figured out how to kill it."
    Interviewer: "Have you tried grinding it up?"
    Scientist: "Yes, we just get more snits.

    and at the end...

    Scientist

  • Just getting the obligatory stuff over with ...

    I for one welcome our new chemical-robotic, payload-carrying overlords.

    In UK you watch 'Robot Wars',
    In Soviet US robot watches YOU!

  • I think most of us here have 'hands-on' experience with this already...

  • Gah (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RichMan (8097) on Wednesday April 04 2007, @09:01AM (#18604205)
    Variable, flexible and soft is not liquid.
        - liquid implies no strong bonding between neighboring particals, the particals are free to change their relationships with each other.

    Remote control is not robot.
        - robot is autonomous.

    This was a rant.

    • Re:Gah - not really liquid (Score:4, Funny)

      by rubycodez (864176) on Wednesday April 04 2007, @10:08AM (#18605509) Homepage
      a mimetic polyalloy

    • Incorrect. Water for example has strong bonding between neighboring water molecules. Instead groups of water molecules are free to change their relations with each other. Then there's silly putty [wikipedia.org], which is solid at small time scales (it'll bounce for example). But it flows as a liquid on a time scale of hours. And you can knead silly putty.

      Basically, it is liquid if you have the properties you mention at some distance and time scale. My take is that this chemical robot need not have the properties of a li

  • I, for one, welcome our grey-goo making liquid overlords!
  • Somebody says "hey, this remarkable thing might be possible." DARPA says "Hey, we should investigate and see if that's useful."

    Remember the inter-net? "Connect multiple computers with disparate architectures manufactured and designed by multiple manufacturers into a single integrated network architecture with seamless sharing of data, regardless of native format." I was vaguely associated with the development work DARPA did on this back in the early 80's - I was sure they were chasing a pipe-dream. DARPA often does, you know.

    Yup - if only one pipe-dream in a hundred ever makes it, the internet sure shows that the other ninety-nine pipes weren't wasted; we can use 'em as tubes for the intarweb. So even if we don't come up with a Cyberdyne T-1000, let's see if something useful does come out of this research. Remember, the Nautilus, space travel, powered flight, even travel in excess of fifty to sixty miles per hour were all once ridiculous ideas - all theoretically impossible for many good scientific reasons. Now, we have nuclear submarines, (arguably) reusable spacecraft, jet travel and teenagers who can't seem to drive at less than seventy to eighty miles per hour!

  • Will we see UN, other foreigners, and some Americans push for the conrol over them to become international in 30 years? Because, you know, the big and evil US will be abusing them left and right...

  • Smart enough to develop the liquid robots.

  • A Fundamental Problem with Robotics (Score:3, Informative)

    by LifesABeach (234436) on Wednesday April 04 2007, @12:02PM (#18607671)
    The designs for Robots of various types, and uses have been around for years. Hollywood is by no means a bastion of creativity. But the main problem that seems to be overlooked by most Wanna-Be Robot Inventors is the POWER SUPPLY. I would think that the DARPA folks would first want do some fundamental research, and solve the problem that is the choke point for all Robotics projects.

    • Re:Idea management by Blockbuster (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Dachannien (617929) on Wednesday April 04 2007, @08:39AM (#18603831)
      No, we wouldn't want a robot that could squeeze through rubble to find survivors of a building collapse. No sirree.

      • Re:Idea management by Blockbuster (Score:4, Insightful)

        by $RANDOMLUSER (804576) on Wednesday April 04 2007, @08:46AM (#18603953)
        While you're right that that would be an ideal use for such a device, that's not what they're asking for:

        PROGRAM GOALS AND MILESTONES
        The goal of this program is to develop a payload-carrying soft robotics platform that can be used in military operations to access denied territory through small openings and perform functions.
        Sure sounds more like covert ops (sneak in and blow them up) to me.

        • Re:Idea management by Blockbuster (Score:5, Informative)

          by peragrin (659227) on Wednesday April 04 2007, @09:01AM (#18604197)
          you do realise the entire internet was designed as a hardened system to help communication in face of a massive nuclear strike.

          What starts with an expensive cold military purpose becomes a tool for every day use.

          There are very few things the military does that won't have practical everyday applications in 20 years.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Ambitwistor (1041236)
          Of course DARPA wants something with military applications — that's what the "D" in DARPA is for. But that doesn't mean that military technology can't have large civilian payoffs, either. (Need I remind anyone here of the Internet? That was back in the days of ARPA, but that organization has always been oriented towards the technological support of national security.)
        • You have to have been smoking a little too much weed to think that a military goal does not drive and benefit peace time technology. You might want to scroll through some of the biggest and most widely applied technological breakthroughs of the last century and see how many were related to military research...
      • I'm sure we could invest in something that would save far more lives with much less money. Like cancer or heart disease research. Or maybe more flexible building materials. Oh wait... that doesn't mean $$$ for military corporations.

    • Re:Idea management by Blockbuster (Score:5, Insightful)

      by qwijibo (101731) on Wednesday April 04 2007, @08:44AM (#18603923)
      The way the request is written, there could be some non-killing applications for these kinds of robots. Search and rescue operations frequently require getting into small spaces to find out what's going on. Collecting information from an unaccessible location has many practical applications. If the espionage applications are the ones that will pay for the research, so be it. The majority of research funding goes into finding new and creative ways to eradicate the human race, but this one could also have up sides.

      The timelines are consistent with current project management methodologies - if you have no intention of completing the project, you may as well fail on an aggressive timeline. At least they haven't yet reached the point where the start date is expected to be after the completion date.

    • Re:Idea management by Blockbuster (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jimbolauski (882977) on Wednesday April 04 2007, @08:49AM (#18603995) Journal
      Lots of money goes towards protecting soldiers, light body armor for example. When the Chinese decide to invade the US I'll be glad we have fancy killing weapons. The best way to protect our soldiers is to eliminate the enemy. It would be nice to think everyone can play together but thats not the case, I would rather have laser guns that collect dust than old m16s that can't penetrate the enemy's new body armor.
      • When the Chinese invade the US? With what sea/airlift capability, exactly?

        • Re:Idea management by Blockbuster (Score:5, Insightful)

          by cheater512 (783349) <nick@nickstallman.net> on Wednesday April 04 2007, @10:01AM (#18605349) Homepage
          Human bridge over the Atlantic.
            • I can't...

              +1 Funny
              -1 Wrong Ocean

              • -1 Wrong Ocean

                Not really. Why would they go for the U.S. first? Regardless of who you are, it's easier to conquer your neighbors before trying to cross a rather large ocean.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Squalish (542159)
          Furthermore, why? They could easily just sell all their US debt and send the US into hyperinflation. They don't desire to do this right now - but as soon as they have a domestic economy anywhere near our size and we present any sort of threat, they can easily cripple us in that regard without firing a shot or harming themselves in any way.

          • They could easily just sell all their US debt and send the US into hyperinflation.
            How do you figure? First they'd have to find buyers for the debt, which belies your 'easily'. But let's suppose they do find those buyers. Now instead of China holding the debt, someone else does, and China holds some assets that the others had before.

            How does changing to whom we owe money from 'China' to some other name cause inflation, much less hyperinflation?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by drooling-dog (189103)

      Someone at the DoD needs to hire slightly less movies and think more about how old fashioned "hearts and minds" would be a better thing to pour money into.

      Pretty much everyone in the research community knows that DARPA has become a bastion of junk and pseudo-science in recent years. I'm sure they're working (i.e., spending lots of money) on perpetual motion and anti-gravity machines even as we speak. So don't jump to the conclusion that earth-shaking advances right out of SciFi are just around the corner because somebody says that DARPA is on it...

    • Re:Idea management by Blockbuster (Score:5, Interesting)

      by c6gunner (950153) on Wednesday April 04 2007, @09:40AM (#18604895)
      Since when has giving people things ever worked to win "hearts and minds" in the long run? Todays breed of anti-government anarchists, hippies, and malcontents are amongst the richest and most privileged human beings in history. They have attained that status through the rights and opportunities afforded to them by their governments. Yet their "hearts and minds" seem to be planted firmly in the camp of those who would not only give them nothing, but take away everything.

      "Free Shit" generally leads only to resentment and antipathy. It is by providing people with the freedom and opportunity to decide their own future that the US has become the great nation it is today, while communist nations which attempt to provide everything for everyone while asking nothing of anyone have blown away like dust on the winds of history.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by GundamFan (848341)
      People wonder why America is producing less and less Scientists and Engineers. It's because we have no imagination any more. We need to get our heads out of the sand and find something to reach for or learn to accept not being important in the world.

      • We need to get our heads out of the sand and find something to reach for or learn to accept not being important in the world.

        Not important? I would mention from a foreigner's perspective we believe you will likely remain the cornerstone of the free world for quite some time. It is for that reason we are concerned about a number of your present actions and attitudes.

        • Then, mayhap the rest of the free world (sans Au) might begin to act like freedom from tyranny is a shared concept instead of kowtowing each time a despot rattles a sabre?

    • As an employee at a chemical firm who likes to research this sort of "cutting edge" stuff, I took this over to our engineers, just for kicks.

      Their primary complaint wasn't that you couldn't make a flexible robot (albeit perhaps a much slower one that described in the RFP). Their complaint was that the robot wouldn't have a CPU, or a brain, because we weren't yet at the capability of doing that kind of thing.

      I responded that (excluding the exotic stuff like using a mouse brain) my cursory review of the RFP s

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