Smart Robot Capable of Hunting For Its Own "Food"

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."

I'm starting to think that the Amish

[wiredog]

may just have a point.

For the love of God!

[Locke2005]

Please don't give these abominations the ability to make replicas of themselves!

Not at all premature

[$RANDOMLUSER]

We can't even safely do an autonomous robot lawn mower that won't grind up the neighbor's cat.

Re:biomass to fuel?

[SatanicPuppy]

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.

Alternative to scary Sci-Fi plots

[i am calliope]

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.

Re:biomass to fuel?

[SatanicPuppy]

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:biomass to fuel?

[nedlohs]

You can, and have been able to for over a century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_car [wikipedia.org]

Sun

[Idiomatick]

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:Only a few questions

[MickLinux]

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.