Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Mini surveillance robot



These minibots are funny. iRobot is developing a super-light mini surveillance robot, which can act autonomously and in a network with others of its kind:

The idea is for a soldier to dispatch a swarm of these “Ember” bots to scout out a possibly-hostile building, instead of sending a single, large Packbot. Once inside, the Embers would set up an ad-hoc wireless network, and then autonomously scurry around the floor (kind of like iRobot’s Roomba vaccum cleaning automaton). Tiny flippers will help them vault over objects. Cameras will beam the scene back to the G.I.


I'm more thinking about the non-military use of these or even smaller bots--what would you do with them? Send them out to your preferred nightclubs to check out which one is worth going to? More probably these would make perfect surveillance (and stalking) tools. Just empty out a bag of these and see them scurrying away, homeing in on your target and giving you permanent live feed on them.

Video: iRobot Rolls Out One-Pound Machine, Ready to Swarm | Danger Room | Wired.com

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