coondoggie writes "Ok, maybe this is getting a little too close to bringing Terminator-like robots to life. For starters, eco-friendly engine builder Cyclone Power this week inked a contract from Robotic Technologies, Inc. (RTI) to develop what it calls a beta biomass engine system that will be the heart of RTI's Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR). The purpose of EATR is to develop and demonstrate an autonomous robotic platform able to perform long-range, long-endurance missions without the need for manual or conventional re-fueling — in other words it needs to 'eat.' According to researchers, the EATR system gets its energy by foraging, or what the firms describe as 'engaging in biologically-inspired, organism-like, energy-harvesting behavior which is the equivalent of eating. It can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable.'"
We can only hope they don't team up with the Multi-Robot Pursuit System project to "search for and detect a non-cooperative human."
Come on... look on the bright side. Instead of your child getting blown apart by a land mine left over from the last invasion, they can get blown apart by a hunter-killer drone. That's WAY cooler.
Reminds me of Stephen King's The Dark Tower... maybe they could dress it up like a bear...
...the EATR robot's inherent advantage is its ability to engage in long-endurance, tedious, and hazardous tasks, such as reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition under difficult conditions, without fatigue or stress...
So we've got omnivorous assassin bots that consume their "target" after "acquisition" to remove evidence of the mission. That's just great.
I think the big limitation against a robot "eating" living things at this point is that the energy required in harvesting anything that moves is far in excess of the energy that the robot will be able to extract from it. Bound to be an inefficient process.
In the long run, however, I think I'd be leery of giving them any sort of decision tree about whether or not "object A" is edible. Even discounting human.pet accidents, no one wants to wake up in the morning to find that a robot has eaten your picnic table.
...that the energy required in harvesting anything that moves is far in excess of the energy that the robot will be able to extract from it.
Tell that to every ambush predator on the planet. As an added bonus, I bet the standby mode on the robot burns less energy than most waiting ambush predators too.
"Hey, is that a new trashcan outside the Dunkin Donuts? Huh I think it moved....WAARGHHHHHHH...."
I imagine a robot that can eat biomass would do pretty well as a trashcan outside Dunkin Donuts anyway. Lots of fat and sugar getting tossed in when the doughnuts go stale.
Nonsense. Humans have the advantage of endurance. Our aboriginals literally can run/walk prey to the point of fatigue, and then attack them when they're weak. Not too different than wolves. We are built to go long times at a moderately fast pace, as opposed to short times at a super fast pace.
So this thing can forage for biomass, which means it is not that picky...why can't we put this in our cars for fuel (ala Mr. Fusion - Back To the Future II)
That gasoline engine in your car is inefficient compared to a big power generator that uses the same fuel. The size, the inability to efficiently process the waste heat...It all adds up.
Taking into account the returns of biomass plants that use high-grade biomass (e.g. corn, unprocessed chicken/pig parts, etc) and then taking into account the efficiency that will certainly be lost by reducing that process to something small enough to be mobile, and I'll be surprised if they can make it work at all.
Well, I imagine that after billions of years of work, and uncountable design changes, our robots will be able to do it too.
In other words, it's not apples to apples. It would take me less energy to build a car from parts than it would take a car to drive a hundred miles. That's because I'm a machine at the end of a multi-million year design process, optimized to live on a wide variety of biomass, in a wide variety of terrains, that is capable of reproducing myself and building semi-autonomous tools.
The problem is the heat exchanger has to be pretty big, so they tend to have lower power density... that is, a heat engine (say, a stirling engine) will be larger and heavier than an internal combustion engine of the same output.
Can you elaborate on whatever point you're making?
With two iterations they were able to make a vehicle more efficient than the original with superior performance.
This implies to me that with another couple decades (just give it a small fraction of the time that's been spent on your classic ICE four-strokes) the technology could be refined to be a direct drop-in, in terms of mass. Materials technology has advanced significantly since those vehicles were put out as well. And finally, if they had produced a vehicle with the same overall performance characteristics of the original the powerplant would have been lighter - this was a prototype retrofit designed to determine the potential of the technology.
My point was that using a heat engine does not necessarily have any drawbacks in common use whatsoever, including increased mass. That has only been the case so far.
I misread your post and got the mental image of waking up, preparing for work, going to the garage and finding my car has wandered off in search of fuel because it "got hungry."
You're assuming that the lawn mower was tasked with the cat's safety in addition to cutting the grass.
Alternatives:
1.) Make the wheels smaller so the cat can't enter the business end of the machine.
2.) Get a dog. Most are too big for the lawnmower to injure, and will keep the cat off the grass.
3.) Reconsider feline sympathy.
Great. This thing will siphon your fuel tank, and if that fails, threaten to eat your cat unless you hand over the charge card for the local service station.
What will it do when it figures out WE are biomass?
I don't want it to "...find, ingest, and extract energy" from MY biomass! I would look too much like a giant, high-energy, slow-moving fuel depot to it.
While there is the possibility of this giving life to Sci-Fi plots such as Dune, Terminator, and Battlestar, I can't help but think that the eating robot can do a lot to save us. What if this "biomass" were food scraps, animal feces, or some other waste product? Cow dung lets off mass amounts of methane that can then be burned. The eating robot could help decrease a need for landfills and decrease carbon in the atmosphere.
"Cyclone brings to this project one of the most advanced external combustion engine technologies we have seen," stated Dr. Robert Finkelstein, President of RTI"
Maybe it's just me but I find it a little worrying that this monster of a robot was created by Dr. Finkelstein
Although I've never seen anything exactly like this, I've personally built a BEAM robot [wikipedia.org] that foraged for its own "food". Instead of seeking biomass, or hydrocarbons, my little BEAM robot just looked for a light source to charge its capacitors through photovoltaic cells.
Not like Terminator (Score:5, Funny)
No, too-Terminator-like would be if it said, "You are not Sarah Connor. But I am a bit peckish...."
Re:Not like Terminator (Score:5, Funny)
Come on... look on the bright side. Instead of your child getting blown apart by a land mine left over from the last invasion, they can get blown apart by a hunter-killer drone. That's WAY cooler.
Reminds me of Stephen King's The Dark Tower... maybe they could dress it up like a bear...
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I am weary, and their deaths will bring me little joy.
Of course, sometimes, a little is enough.
Then again, that was a vampire...
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
... more like The Matrix.
Oh shoot! (Score:5, Interesting)
Quote from article, emphasis added:
...the EATR robot's inherent advantage is its ability to engage in long-endurance, tedious, and hazardous tasks, such as reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition under difficult conditions, without fatigue or stress...
So we've got omnivorous assassin bots that consume their "target" after "acquisition" to remove evidence of the mission. That's just great.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"So we've got omnivorous assassin bots that consume their "target" after "acquisition" to remove evidence of the mission. That's just great."
"Whirrrr...click....BLAM!
OM NOM NOM NOM.
Sploot.
Whirr...."
I'm starting to think that the Amish (Score:5, Insightful)
may just have a point.
Re:I'm starting to think that the Amish (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:I'm starting to think that the Amish (Score:5, Funny)
I bet the Amish could apply for the "organic" label.
If a machine only eats "organic" people, do you think they'd be eligible for tax breaks as a "green" consumer?
Parent
Ummm, I'm thinking that, in this situation (Score:3, Funny)
they'd be the "consumed" rather than the "consumers", so no tax break. Unless you're talking about giving the robots a tax break.
Re:Ummm, I'm thinking that, in this situation (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:I'm starting to think that the Amish (Score:5, Funny)
No, more like "Genuine Corn Fed Humans, no extra processing, no artificial hormones or sweeteners! Raised on the farm without cages!"
Parent
Only a few questions (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I assume you have question #1 there to see if fluffy has any competition for eating your non-corpse?
Or maybe I'm the only one who's well fed cats want to eat him.
Re:Only a few questions (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Yes.
2) Yes.
3) Yes.
I think the big limitation against a robot "eating" living things at this point is that the energy required in harvesting anything that moves is far in excess of the energy that the robot will be able to extract from it. Bound to be an inefficient process.
In the long run, however, I think I'd be leery of giving them any sort of decision tree about whether or not "object A" is edible. Even discounting human.pet accidents, no one wants to wake up in the morning to find that a robot has eaten your picnic table.
Parent
Re:Only a few questions (Score:5, Funny)
...that the energy required in harvesting anything that moves is far in excess of the energy that the robot will be able to extract from it.
Tell that to every ambush predator on the planet. As an added bonus, I bet the standby mode on the robot burns less energy than most waiting ambush predators too.
"Hey, is that a new trashcan outside the Dunkin Donuts? Huh I think it moved....WAARGHHHHHHH...."
Parent
Re:Only a few questions (Score:4, Funny)
I imagine a robot that can eat biomass would do pretty well as a trashcan outside Dunkin Donuts anyway. Lots of fat and sugar getting tossed in when the doughnuts go stale.
Or McDonalds, for that matter.
Parent
Re:Only a few questions (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Only a few questions (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
biomass to fuel? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:biomass to fuel? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's almost certainly wildly inefficient.
That gasoline engine in your car is inefficient compared to a big power generator that uses the same fuel. The size, the inability to efficiently process the waste heat...It all adds up.
Taking into account the returns of biomass plants that use high-grade biomass (e.g. corn, unprocessed chicken/pig parts, etc) and then taking into account the efficiency that will certainly be lost by reducing that process to something small enough to be mobile, and I'll be surprised if they can make it work at all.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I imagine that after billions of years of work, and uncountable design changes, our robots will be able to do it too.
In other words, it's not apples to apples. It would take me less energy to build a car from parts than it would take a car to drive a hundred miles. That's because I'm a machine at the end of a multi-million year design process, optimized to live on a wide variety of biomass, in a wide variety of terrains, that is capable of reproducing myself and building semi-autonomous tools.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The problem is the heat exchanger has to be pretty big, so they tend to have lower power density... that is, a heat engine (say, a stirling engine) will be larger and heavier than an internal combustion engine of the same output.
I disagree [nasa.gov].
Re:biomass to fuel? (Score:5, Interesting)
Can you elaborate on whatever point you're making?
With two iterations they were able to make a vehicle more efficient than the original with superior performance.
This implies to me that with another couple decades (just give it a small fraction of the time that's been spent on your classic ICE four-strokes) the technology could be refined to be a direct drop-in, in terms of mass. Materials technology has advanced significantly since those vehicles were put out as well. And finally, if they had produced a vehicle with the same overall performance characteristics of the original the powerplant would have been lighter - this was a prototype retrofit designed to determine the potential of the technology.
My point was that using a heat engine does not necessarily have any drawbacks in common use whatsoever, including increased mass. That has only been the case so far.
Parent
Re:biomass to fuel? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You can, and have been able to for over a century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_car [wikipedia.org]
My worst fear (Score:5, Funny)
It just keeps going, and going, and going.....
For the love of God! (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember the most important lesson... (Score:4, Funny)
Limit the robots to a six foot power cord.
Back to the future (Score:2)
Well, obviously, all they need to do is invent a Mr Fusion! That should give them enough jiggawatts to run their precious doomsday machines =)
Not at all premature (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
but we can make a table saw that won't cut a hot dog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9OLIzMa4Oo [youtube.com]
Re:Not at all premature (Score:5, Funny)
Alternatives:
1.) Make the wheels smaller so the cat can't enter the business end of the machine.
2.) Get a dog. Most are too big for the lawnmower to injure, and will keep the cat off the grass.
3.) Reconsider feline sympathy.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Yea, but for this, that's not a bug, that's a feature.
Unstopable! (Score:4, Funny)
Great. This thing will siphon your fuel tank, and if that fails, threaten to eat your cat unless you hand over the charge card for the local service station.
What will it do when it figures out WE are biomass?
Direct source (Score:2)
Piss on Network World and their splash screen.
here's the story: http://www.robotictechnologyinc.com/index.php/EATR [robotictechnologyinc.com]
Some prior art... (Score:2, Informative)
...from back in 2001 was UWE's Slugbot, which was supposed to 'live off the land' by finding and digesting agricultural pests:
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/news/2001/10/47156 [wired.com]
Keep that thing away from me! (Score:2)
I don't want it to "...find, ingest, and extract energy" from MY biomass! I would look too much like a giant, high-energy, slow-moving fuel depot to it.
Then again, if it didn't hurt too much ...
Alternative to scary Sci-Fi plots (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Alternative to scary Sci-Fi plots (Score:5, Funny)
"Attention, citizen! I am Robocop(rophage). Step away from the doggie doo and nobody gets eaten."
"Thank you for your copro-peration."
(Sorry, I just can't stop.)
Parent
Dirty Trick (Score:2)
What would happen if you fed it a gallon of Olestra [wikipedia.org]? Talk about rear seal leakage!
My home would be an ideal habitat (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Technically the Roomba falls into this category.. Not with dust and dirt, but it does seek out its base station when it gets hungry for its EMF food
Dr. Frankenstein (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe it's just me but I find it a little worrying that this monster of a robot was created by Dr. Finkelstein
It's alive Igor, It's Alive!!
Protection (Score:4, Funny)
Not a new idea (Score:3, Interesting)
DARPA's new endeavor (Score:5, Funny)
long-endurance missions such as search and rescue in the mountains and caves of Afghanistan and Pakistan
Greetings person in Afghan cave.
I am a robot.
I am here to rescue you.
*chainsaw*
Stand still so I can rescue you.
Sun (Score:3, Insightful)
Wouldn't solar power be easier? Where there are enough things to eat to survive there is enough sun to survive. Though i suppose its neat.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
So the nuclear war was really just emo-skynet cutting itself?