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Robotics United States

DARPA to Raise Robot LANdroid Army 127

Posted by CmdrTaco from the hey-baby-wanna-destroy-all-humans dept.
Banekartr writes "The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency plans to develop a fleet of robots that soldiers can deploy in urban combat settings as they move through houses and along streets. The program, dubbed LANdroid, envisions miniature autonomous drones that can form a network capable of relaying radio traffic in a setting often considered challenging for communications equipment. According to a notional image of a LANdroid included in a DARPA pamphlet, each robot will be about the size of a deck of cards, and must be rugged, lightweight and able to operate for seven to 14 days, the agency said. Demand for technologies to improve the military's ability to fight in urban settings has increased in recent years because many of the operations in Iraq take place in Baghdad and other Iraqi metropolitan settings. DARPA officials will provide additional information about the program during a July 6 industry day."
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DARPA to Raise Robot LANdroid Army More

DARPA to Raise Robot LANdroid Army

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  • Won't a bunch of little robots crawling about be pretty conspicuous?

    Really, how difficult will it to put a bounty out for kids to go about smashing such things with rocks or something? Unless they can stay undetected they're gonna be prime targets for removal by anyone who doesn't want them about.

    Cheers
    • I think they see these operational in active combat zones. Not sure how many kids are running around smashing stuff when there's live fire a block over. They could always print a copy of the Koran on the cover, making it a sin to destroy them. :)

      I just hope they run linux so I can program my own LANDroid minions.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by gstoddart ( 321705 )

        I think they see these operational in active combat zones. Not sure how many kids are running around smashing stuff when there's live fire a block over.

        Hopefully that's true. But, I don't get the impression that when there's a running firefight in urban parts of Baghdad that they've managed to clear out all of the civilians. In some places (maybe not Iraq, I don't know), the kids are sadly participating in the live fire.

        When you're battling an insurgency/non-traditional forces, they don't always clear eve

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by reconn ( 578681 )
        Well crap, you've just described a scene from the spiders [e-sheep.com], an alternate-history-GWOT web comic. Life art life art life.
    • Give them simple avoidance algorithms. We've been studying cockroaches for how long now?
      Ew. Robotic cockroaches. Armed. Hundreds of them.
      Better hope that IFF thingy works.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ackthpt ( 218170 )

      Won't a bunch of little robots crawling about be pretty conspicuous?

      Really, how difficult will it to put a bounty out for kids to go about smashing such things with rocks or something? Unless they can stay undetected they're gonna be prime targets for removal by anyone wo doesn't want them about.

      So do what geocachers do, figure out how to hide something in plain sight. A grotty old tin is lying in the gutter. Who would guess it actually contains a little robot cabable of moving the can around with s

    • Seems pretty easy to use low-tech against these. Dogs for one. And then application of effective peasant technology such as POR weapons (Plain Old Rocks) or SMD (Shovel of Mass Destruction) or the more sophisticated FBCB airborne weapon, also known as Frikkin Big Concrete Block deployed off roof.

      Also they may be susceptive to simple home-brew weapons. Robo-tasers, gadgets rigged from auto ignition coils, etc.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mikael ( 484 )
      From the PDF document (page 10)


      The goal is to create small, inexpensive, smart robotic radio relay nodes that
      dismounted warfighters drop as they deploy in urban settings. The nodes then self-configure and
      form a mesh network - a temporary infrastructure that establishes communications over the
      region. As the situation changes, the nodes will adapt the network, such as self-healing if nodes
      are destroyed by the enemy. Through movement and density, the LANdroids will enable
      effective communications in complex non
    • Hah!
      I'll just counter-attack the Landroids using my LandLord(TM). It will send them home penniless and humiliated.
    • Really, how difficult will it to put a bounty out for kids to go about smashing such things with rocks or something? Unless they can stay undetected they're gonna be prime targets for removal by anyone who doesn't want them about.

      Well... That is what the sniper hidden on the rooftop waiting for a "no-signal" alert is for.

      And to be fair to the kid (and to those standing around him), the alternative was to just have a Predator drone drop some white phosphorus on last known position of the robot.
      • Possibly. Another, or perhaps additional, option is to plan for the child contingency. Make the bots appealing and give them a few "stupid pet trick" buttons so the child will take the bot home to play with it. Now you have an embedded 'bot that can be used for surveillance.
    • Won't a bunch of little robots crawling about be pretty conspicuous?

      Really, how difficult will it to put a bounty out for kids to go about smashing such things with rocks or something? Unless they can stay undetected they're gonna be prime targets for removal by anyone who doesn't want them about.

      Ah yeah, but if they were invisible [slashdot.org]. Now that would be difficult to smash [slashdot.org] :-)
    • I think they're planning on dressing them up in white desert robes with dark mustaches.

      Seriously, though, if they really require some decent droids they should buy them from Lady Caslon....

  • Beowulf (Score:1, Redundant)

    by jshriverWVU ( 810740 )
    Just imagine a beowulf cluster of these!
    • I, for one, predict a fleet of "I, for one, welcome our deck-of-card-sized LANdroid overlords" jokes.
    • You know, I don't mean to be cruel, but every time someone attempts one of these jokes and gets modded down, I picture that person stepping out into the limelight and delivering his hackneyed line. Crickets chirp for a moment, an audience member coughs, and then a trumpet plays that sad little "WAH Wah wah waaaaaah" bit as the poor unfortunate is dragged off with a hook.

      That's probably just me, though.
    • There's irony in the redundant mod of the parent post, somewhere. Can't quite spot it...

  • Please no (Score:3, Funny)

    by Hijacked Public ( 999535 ) * on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @10:22AM (#19580475)
    Please tell me that the network layout graphics in the linked PDF were not created by an adult working for the US Government.

    Seriously, the little guy running with a rifle icon, that has to be from some grade school art contest. No one could possibly think those are functional informational graphics intended for grown ups.

    And the green clouds?
    • Grownups? Since when are reporters and news managers grownups?
    • Seriously, the little guy running with a rifle icon, that has to be from some grade school art contest.

      It's from a clip-art collection. I swear to god I've seen it before.

      I think the "green cloud" is intentional -- if you look at it, it's not just a cloud, it's an overlapping of circles with radial gradients surrounding each of the nodes, presumably indicating their range or effective coverage area. Or maybe because it just looks cool.

      Anyway, this is DARPA -- what do you expect? They're too busy thinking ab
      • The problem, as usual, is that the graphics will eventually affect how they look at things and silly cartoonish graphics aren't going to further anyone's understanding.

        The green circles are all the same size. If the Landroid that fell down into the sewer can effectively cover the same area as the one clinging to the side of the building, this must be some new wireless LAN technology I've never seen before.

        And the warfighters who are trying to communicate, they both look like Meatloaf wearing a cookpot on hi
    • Well, sometimes you get the feeling people who make pdf-files spend more time on the pdf than on the idea, so I think this was pretty refreshing.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jdray ( 645332 )
      I presume the green circles are "radio footprints." Of course, whomever made this either didn't realize that overlapping the radio footprints doesn't make the devices communicate (the footprint has to reach the next device over), or figured that people reading wouldn't know and were going for visual impact instead.

  • LANdriod? (Score:3, Funny)

    by AltGrendel ( 175092 ) <ag-slashdot@eGAUSSxit0.us minus math_god> on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @10:23AM (#19580499) Homepage
    Come on, you can do better than that

    And anyway, I thought that Lucas had a copyright on anything 'droid.

    • True. Besides, when I hear LANdroid, I think of the poor intern being blown about by cold air as he pops his head up from raised floor tiles like a meerkat while holding miles of tangled CAT5.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ubrgeek ( 679399 )
      Well, originally they wanted iLANDroid but ...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Reziac ( 43301 ) *
      Actually, the first use of "droid" that I personally know of was in an SF novel from the 1950s. (Someday I'll find it again... gotta unearth and reread that part of my collection...)

      But when I saw this article, my first thought was ... oh no, REPLICATORS!!!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by R2.0 ( 532027 )
      Screw Lucas - if Tom Selleck and Gene Simmons aren't involved, then I'm not interested.
  • "We can put a man on the moon, but we can't build killer robot police?"
    • "We can put a man on the moon,..

      The serious and lucid answer to that statement is the fellow who came up with the program was gunned down in Dallas on November 22, 1963. (Oddly enough, when George H.W. Bush was visiting Dallas that very day.)

      Locator file for Geo. H.W.Bush:

      Dallas on the morning of the JFK assassination, dining with Hinckley family on night before Hinckley Junior attempts to whack Ronald Reagan; brunching with brother of Osama bin Laden, and head of BinLaden Group, the day prior to,

  • I've got a bad feeling about this.. (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Look, sir: droids!

  • I can't wait (Score:3, Interesting)

    by niceone ( 992278 ) * on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @10:27AM (#19580591) Journal
    I can't wait for the civilian version - I could use a bunch of Wifi routers with tracks scurrying round my house making sure I never get into a weak signal area.

    As long as I could turn them off at night that is.
  • This is really being designed to help the army commanders answer the age-old question: "TK-421, why aren't you at your post?" Now they can just ask the LANDroids.

  • able to operate for seven to 14 days

    They'll probably need to recharge their batteries rather than dedicate a lot of space to bigger ones.

    When the Pentagon sends out little robots that feed on "battlefield casualty" bodies, we're all doomed.
    • I think the point is they would just have non-replacable batteries, work for 14 days (or whatever) by managing that power very closely, and then die.

      I strongly suspect that they're considered disposable -- you place them out to get communications coverage for one particular operation, and then just abandon them in place afterwards.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by quanticle ( 843097 )

        just abandon them in place afterwards.

        That may not be a good idea, since enemy forces could just then grab the abandoned droids, and use them to listen in or jam our communications. A better idea would be a self-destruct mechanism of some kind, to prevent capture.

        Also, does anyone else think that these LANDroids sound a lot like the Probe Droids from Empire Strikes Back?

        • Doesn't seem like that would be too hard to do. It might be something as simple as only storing the encryption key in volatile memory, so that when the batteries run out, the key evaporates. You're left with the hardware, but it won't handshake with the rest of the network or do anything else particularly useful.

          Plus, if you're an adversary trying to avoid being killed by U.S. forces, picking up a U.S. radio and transmitting on it is probably unhealthy. As in, once detected, it could lead to serious HARM [fas.org]. (

          • As in, once detected, it could lead to serious HARM.

            Yeah, you have a good point there. However, it brings up another question. Presumably, these little robots will have soldiers nearby (otherwise, what's the point). So what's preventing the enemy from homing in on the radio signals emitted by these things when they're looking to ambush some GIs?

            • That's definitely a risk, however I think there's a certain assumption of technological superiority. (Which has been the case at least recently, although I suppose it's dangerous to project that assumption too far into the future.)

              But actually, using a little network of micro-repeaters like this makes life somewhat safer for individual soldiers, since their personal radios don't have to transmit with nearly as much power (since it just has to hit the nearest repeater, not the destination station). Also, if

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jdray ( 645332 )
      Being military, they'll probably use RTGs to charge capacitors. I suspect a fairly small RTG would generate enough juice to charge ultra-capacitors for use on the high-energy stuff like movement. AKAImBatman would know more, if he's reading...

      • Yeah, because it'd be a good idea to give terrorists easy access to nuclear materials/technology. :)

        (Yeah, I know, RTGs use low-grade materials, but it's funnier if you don't think too hard about it. OTOH, it might make it harder to detect actual bomb-making materials if you're scattering around a bunch of RTGs.)

      • Re:To Serve Man (Score:5, Interesting)

        by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) * <akaimbatman@ g m a i l . com> on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @11:11AM (#19581543) Homepage Journal

        AKAImBatman would know more, if he's reading...

        At your service. I saw the bat-signal and came a'running. ;-)

        Being military, they'll probably use RTGs to charge capacitors.

        It would be nice, but I doubt it. RTGs are still incredibly expensive and wouldn't be used on something throw-away like this. In fact, the military as a whole tends to shy away from nuclear technology unless it's a bomb. The only reason why NASA still uses RTGs in the face of public protests is because nothing else will work. (Spacecraft live and die by the power available to them. Nuclear is not just an option, it's a requirement for extended space travel. People are going to need to accept that if we ever want to push out into space.)

        More likely the military will look into using fuel cells or microgenerators to power these little buggers. For about the same space as it would cost to pack a couple of LIon batteries, the engineers could stick an alcohol fuel tank & (power cell | micro-gas turbine) with many time the energy density. That would allow the robots to meet or exceed the 7-14 day life expectancy.

        Here's an example of just such a fuel cell: http://www.gizmag.com/go/5325/ [gizmag.com]

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jdray ( 645332 )
          I'll grant you that those things are much lighter and more power rich than LIon batteries, but it's still huge compared to the target size of the whole package the military is looking for, and 180 W/h isn't enough to do the sort of thing they need, AFAIK. I still think RTGs are the answer.

          • I'll grant you that those things are much lighter and more power rich than LIon batteries, but it's still huge compared to the target size of the whole package the military is looking for

            The particular unit I linked to is a replacement for their current computer/radio batteries. You'd use smaller units in the "deck of cards" sized LANdroid.

            180 W/h isn't enough to do the sort of thing they need

            You sure about that? The LANdroid is intended to provide Wireless communications for 7-14 days. Its actual movement

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by jdray ( 645332 )

              I find that the unit could operate on 1.07 watts

              Okay, but what is that, about three and a half days? That's far short of "seven to 14 days" mentioned in the blurb.

              If you look at this description of a General Purpose Heat Source Module [doe.gov] (dontcha love those military descriptive names?), you see that the major problem with an RTG is, as you alluded to, mass and not size.

              GPHS modules stand approximately two inches tall and have a base that is almost square with sides less than four inches in length. Each GPH

              • *AHEM* I said:

                Using 7 days on a 180 Wh power supply as a baseline

                You said:

                what is that, about three and a half days?

                Answer: No. Read above.

                Eight watts isn't much, but it's going to do it for longer than the average term of service for a soldier.

                It also costs tens of millions of dollars. Like I said, RTG development is an ideal solution for many situations. However, the military does not currently have access to RTG technology, is not looking to devleop RTG technology, is cognizant of the fact that the publi

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by jdray ( 645332 )

                  The soldiers would be carrying around scalding hot devices as their power sources.

                  Okay, you win. But thanks for the link to the SRG page. Very interesting. Now I'm going to go read up on "linear alternators."

    • Anybody else remember the one with the two vultures on it that said "Scavengers my eye! I'm going to kill something!" I imagine a Beowulf cluster of these would look like a swarm of pirhanas come feeding time...
  • These aren't the droids.... GAHHHH!
  • equals a really bad sci fi movie. I guess that depends on how you liked terminator or R.O.T.O.R. . I'm sure there are many others and they usually end pretty bad. Like some terrorist getting their hands on the robot and reprogramming.

    But if it saves human lives, then it is a good thing. Until they decide they are better than us and hunt us all down.

    ROTFLOL

  • WiFi Repeater With Wheels? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Bob9113 ( 14996 ) on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @10:40AM (#19580841) Homepage
    OK, I just gotta ask: Why would you want a WiFi repeater to be mobile? Given its size, it can't be *that* mobile, especially in an environment with a little bomb debris. I can't imagine it would be able to keep up with the troops, and the recovery rate (if they're hoping for it to drive home) would be so miniscule as to be outweighed by the increased bulk and cost of the drive unit.

    Leave the drive unit and motor control out, double the battery life, halve the weight and price, drop twice as many. Then design a separate device to do whatever they hell those tracks are on there for (giving the brass stiffies, is my guess).

    JM2C, but this looks like a tits-on-a-mule cockup between war scientists and dipshit generals. "That looks good. Can you put wheels on it?" "Wheels, Sir?" "Yeah, wheels, so it can drive around, like that Grand Challenge thing you did. And the Predator. Autonomous warfighting robots, it's the future, son." "Umm, well, I guess it's possible." "Outstanding! Let me know when it's ready."

    Not that I don't dig the shit out of DARPA, and I definitely want an autonomoous WiFi tank of my own, but this seems a little stupid.

    • Re:WiFi Repeater With Wheels? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Kadin2048 ( 468275 ) * <slashdot@kadin.xoxy@net> on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @11:00AM (#19581305) Homepage Journal
      Agree completely. Having it move around seems stupid, unless it has some sort of other purpose besides what's being disclosed. (Anyone remember the little slow-crawling bombs from Total Annihilation?) I think they're just there for the "wow" (or perhaps "WTF") factor.

      Seems like, if you had enough money to spend on the design, you could make a wifi (or similar UHF/microwave) repeater that was really tiny. Use custom ASICs, and I bet you could get something that was less than an inch in diameter and a few inches long, including batteries. Harden them appropriately, and you could drop them from planes over a target area, and even if you took substantial losses, would still have a functioning mesh network on the ground.

      What you really want isn't a miniature tank with a Wifi AP strapped to it, what you want is an overgrown self-powered RFID tag with transmit/receive and basic routing capabilities.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Yvanhoe ( 564877 )
      I suspect that they will not only have wheel but also cameras. THAT would make them useful as an occupation tool. (Of course it should absolutely not be tolerated outside a battlefield and any citizen should be authorized to destroy them during peace time). For a SF vision of this sort, you can check this SF webcomic [e-sheep.com]. In fact the idea seems to come directly from it...

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      In the PDF they specifically mention the two reasons for wheels/tracks (doesn't matter which for the project, just that it's able ot move):
      • Fine tuning of signal strength. If you think this is not a significant advantage, you haven't spent much time trying to find the strongest signal for a particular location. Just because your home wifi is 'good enough' for your purposes, doesn't mean it couldn't be a lot better 2 inches to the North. This is very significant when you realize that these units will be de

  • Not a technical problem (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Our armies are not designed to be police forces that occupy cities.

    This is not a technical problem that robots will solve.

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by Shihar ( 153932 )
      That might not have been the original intent, but that is what they are used for now, and this is what they have to adapt to. For better or for worse, there is no other organization out there capable of acting as a police force in a combat zone, especially when it is a combat zone filled with warring ethnic and tribal rivals. Cops don't have the fire power, the UN couldn't find its dick (much less a genocide) if you handed it to them, and NGOs don't fight. The only alternative to using a national army is
  • LANdroid army ::tab::

    incidentally how does one include strings in gt/lt brackets without the /. parser recognizing it as html.
  • I'm looking forward to deep strike battlefield videos, all in the name of The Greater Good.
  • Is to compliment the army of droids with the orbiting battle station.

    http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Conservative_med ia_site_claims_Bush_will_1202.html [rawstory.com]

    So really, when it all boils down to it, liberals watched Star Trek, and wanted to make the world like that, whereas conservatives watched Star Wars, and wanted to make the world look like that.

    Just a like President and a Vice President, there is a master and apprentice. Which is which?
    • Considering Star Trek's positions on the continuity problem and DRM, I think maybe Star Wars' universe might be the brighter future.

      "Well, what we do is make an exact duplicate of you, while killing you. Also, it might not be in that order, and sometimes one of those operations will fail."

      and,

      "There may only ever be one copy of the critical emergency medical software. Even if you get a portable, auxiliary storage device from the future. Move or move not. There is no copy."

      Which brings to mind the Star T
  • Paint them white, let them loose and wait for the enemy to say 'Ooh, iPhone!' then when they pick it up, kaboom!

  • urban pacification .. (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by rs232 ( 849320 )
    How about not spending the money on figuring out ways to destroy some gook village and instead spend it on health care. Wait untill they turn this stuff on you.

    "This city has been pacified", Judge Joe Dredd

    • Re:urban pacification .. (Score:4, Funny)

      by Shihar ( 153932 ) on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @11:00AM (#19581307)

      How about not spending the money on figuring out ways to destroy some gook village and instead spend it on health care. Wait untill they turn this stuff on you.
      Wait until they turn an army of wi-fi LAN bots on us? Oh dear god. Please, don't let them give me free wi-fi access!
    • Person #1: "We need ideas on how to resolve the Iraq quagmire."
      Person #2: "How about a withdrawal?"
      Person #1: "Unreasonable! Next!"
      Person #3: "A death ray?"
      Person #1: "Look into that, next!"
      Person #2: "A withdrawal is the sane answer..."
      Person #1: "No can do! Next!"
      Person #4: "Ummm, a billion dollars for mind control research?"
      Person #1: "Great! Add it to the budget, next!"
      Person #2: "For a fraction of that we could end this."
      Person #1: "Not acceptable! Gotta stay in! Next!"
      Person #5: "A fleet of robot

    • instead spend it on health care

      I don't know. Suicide bombers don't strike me as the type who are really concerned about their health. Maybe some life insurance for them and accidental dismemberment for IED makers?

  • I for one... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Mr. Fahrenheit ( 962814 ) on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @10:53AM (#19581155)
    ...welcome our new... oh god I'm so depressed.
  • did I hear someone mention Landru [incompetech.com]?
  • "Demand for technologies .. has increased .. because many of the operations in Iraq take place in Baghdad and other Iraqi metropolitan settings"

    How dare those Islamo-fascist-crypto-communists think they can run their own country and steal our oil.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You're right. I mean, they have an advantage; they don't value human life. Makes it a lot easier for them then us; We should just give in and let them conquer the world, like the Quran tells them to.

      • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

        by rs232 ( 849320 )
        "You're right. I mean, they have an advantage; they don't value human life. Makes it a lot easier for them then us; We should just give in and let them conquer the world, like the Quran tells them to"

        There was *no* danger of terrorism attacks coming from Iraq as Saddam Hussein kept the Islamic fundamentalists firmly under his thumb. And back when he invaded Iran, he was still one of Americas favourite dictators in the middle east. It was only after he invaded Kuwait that he became Americas second biggest
  • This must have been how Marvin became a paranoid android.
  • Cute little things, but they are going to have a hell of a time with stairs.

    • they are going to have a hell of a time with stairs

      Says who? [wikipedia.org]

      Actually, I see these things (the DARPA card deck-sized robots) being tossed through second floor windows, and launched to higher storeys.

  • ... in minority report?
  • Supposedly, the LANdroids are to be deployed at the same time the troops are. The only problem I see is that these droids can't move as fast as Hummers and tanks. An army needs to be highly mobile, and take ground at a high rate. How can these droids change positions fast enough to compensate for a fast-moving army? Doesn't seem possible to me.

    A better alternative would be to make these droids into mini-helicopters instead. They could land on roof-tops and thus be more out of harm's way. Plus, they could

  • Another Conservative failure (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Oh yes, excellent idea. Let's retool our entire nation's military to make it more effective... to fight in Iraq. And that's it.

    Gone are the days when our military is focused on "national defense". Now our military will be good for one thing, and one thing only: subjugating our Iraqi colony, and perpetuating the genocide of people who have the audacity to live above our oil.

    Yep, these conservatives sure are smart.
    • Well, we (the USA) haven't had a defensive war/military action since WWII. Korea, Viet Nam, Grenada, Panama, Iraq (parts 1 and 2), Somalia, Bosnia, etc., are the larger operations that come to mind. If you think the lack of a "national defense" focused military is new, you're about 45-50 years late to realize this.

      Realistically, most of the kinds of fighting in the post WWII era has been much like it is in Iraq--urban guerilla warfare fighting against a smaller outgunned and almost invisible enemy that use
  • Why has noone talk about the porn/stripclub applications. SexBots Rule. God im so lonely :-( somebody please make me a sexbot.
  • Future warfare will be more and more fought in urban areas as people move more and more to cities. And as US has now noticed, urban warfare is something completly different from normal warfare.
  • These robots will be easy pickings for the enemy. They'll figure out a way to harvest them, reprogram them, or just re-use the parts. This will put the terrorists and insurgents decades ahead. The wiring diagrams will be available by bittorrent.
  • how long will it take for a freedom fighter and his 12 year old son to hack one of these and turn a platoon of these little buggers 180 degrees around.

    Yeah, I know, sounds like a bad movie, but a bunch of electronics can be 'persuaded' to fight it's own side than a bunch of brainwashed people.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • At first glance, I thought the headline was about the "raising of a RANDroid army."


    I thought "Finally!" and was ready to grab my Objectivist Concordance and start marching.


  • They were working on this stuff at KU as far as 4 years back by mounting repeaters on vehicles that would allow the network to change dynamically and route around hills and stuff if connections between two vehicles was cut by terrain.

  • :O (Score:2)

    by pmsyyz ( 23514 )
    I'm picturing the little spider robots from Minority Report.
  • All I can think about is a soldier walking around, surrounded by a ring of little robots. This reminds me of Super Paper Mario where you can walk around surrounded by a ring of little Marios that will protect you.

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