Swarmanoid robot project foreshadows certain robotic takeover

So we had a glimpse of what thousands of robotic creatures linked together in harmonic teamwork looked like last year, but certainly didn't expect the European Union to go and drop £1,850,000 ($3,482,810) to make this kind of thing a serious endeavor. Nonetheless, an EU-sponsored 42-month research program into so-called swarm bots is set to commence next month, and will be led by Dr. Marco Dorigo of the University Libre de Bruxelles. The primary focus (aside from instilling an imminent fear of global robotic dominance) is to create a small army of specialized robots that can successfully "adapt to live in buildings," and help us common folk out while they're at it. The project will focus on 60 "dynamically connected autonomous 'bots," known collectively as a Swarmanoid, that consists of eye-bots, hand-bots, and foot-bots. While the names are fairly self-explanatory, eye-bots will handle the vision aspect while grappled onto ceilings, conveying the info to hand-bots (wall climbers and grabbers) and foot-bots (ground terrain specialists). Ultimately, the research team would like to see the bots solve certain "problems" by relying solely on one another's skill sets, and while we are admittedly frightened at what that really means, we'll just cross our fingers that the humans will still be the ones in control 3.5 years from now.

[Via Robot Gossip]

[Geoff @ Sep 30th 2006 1:31AM]

swarm - |sw�rm| - noun
�a large or dense group of insects, esp. flying ones.
� a large number of honeybees that leave a hive en masse with a newly fertilized queen in order to establish a new colony.
� ( a swarm/swarms of) a large number of people or things : a swarm of journalists.
� a series of similar-sized earthquakes occurring together, typically near a volcano.
� Astronomy a large number of minor celestial objects occurring together in space, esp. a dense shower of meteors.

Yep. Swarm just conjures up a whole bunch of pleasant things. Clearly swarming robots are nothing to worry about. You couldn't call them ubuntu robots or cooperative robots. You call them a swarmanoid robot project. Thanks for the nightmares Engadget.

[Deluxe @ Sep 30th 2006 1:34AM]

"ubuntu robots or cooperative robots" - Well those are just boring. Swarmanoid all the way. Will they do all the jobs that i dont want to? Like changing filters?

[Matt @ Sep 30th 2006 1:36AM]

I for one welcome our dynamically connected autonomous robotic overlords.

Sorry, forgot this wasn't /.

[Dario @ Sep 30th 2006 1:44AM]

strap some C4 on those suckers, and u got urself a movin bomb, better the robots than our troops

[TBrown @ Sep 30th 2006 2:02AM]

I was hoping I could make a comment fast enough to prevent someone from saying a stupid "I for one..."
comment. People, your 6 months too late for that to even be remotely funny.

Not sur why 3.5 mil is needed for this, but if it successfully adapts it will be sweet.

[Luke @ Sep 30th 2006 4:27AM]

I still think it's funny...

Simple thrills for the simple minded I guess. :D

[Todd @ Sep 30th 2006 9:09AM]

The whole "I for one..." thing is STILL funny ( hysterical actually ), especially when used with the proper grammatical structure.

The idea of "swarmanoids" is NOT funny, especially when combined with those South Korean border centuries.

[Matt Hadder @ Sep 30th 2006 6:27AM]

Excellent!

A cohesive mass of multifaceted autonomous machines! Until individual robots can do everything from making breakfast, building cars, to running trenches and preforming surgeries specialized teams will be the way to go.
Vive le machine!

[Mr. Negative @ Sep 30th 2006 10:30AM]

I for one think it is very funny. I clicked this link just to see how funny the "I for one" comment would be.

[Alex @ Sep 30th 2006 11:20AM]

Yeah I don't know about you guys but I still think "I, for one welcome....robot overlords" is funny.

[Christian @ Sep 30th 2006 11:47AM]

The "I for one..." comment is the only thing I come for to read when it's about robots.

[Jim @ Sep 30th 2006 12:30PM]

"I don't understand why we have to build a ray gun to aim at a planet I never even heard of."

"Don't blame me, I voted for Swarmanoid..."

[furtim @ Sep 30th 2006 2:54PM]

Considering the news out of the US this week, I for one think our dynamically connected autonomous robotic overlords would be an improvement.