Why would you want to build a 100-strong
swarm of mini robots? Well, aside from having them as your minions, you might be able to learn about "artificial self-organization," and "control in large robotic groups," which should come in useful during the inevitable
robot insurrection. The swarm robot project, undertaken by the Universities of Stuttgart and Karlsruhe in Germany, aims to produce mini drones that can communicate with one another to avoid collisions, while keeping to a volume of less than three centimeters cubed. Built using open source software and hardware (full list of components is available under the
GPL), the latest prototype, titled Jasmine III, achieves those goals while also being able to run "perpetually" thanks to a wireless charging platform. You can see it in close-up after the break, or hit the read link for all the geeky details.
posted Nov 16th 2009 10:44AM
first
Too bad this doesn't have a video. They are kind of cool, now give them little lasers so they can battle each other.
No, give them little lasers so they can decide who is the weakest among US. Let them decide, let THEM decide! Ah ha hah ha !!
Or use their lasers to start a human parts factory. A simple beam across a wrist then a freezer and voila, a replacement hand for the cyborgs that these little beggars are building in that warehouse down the way. I'm just sayin'.....
I don't care if they are making robots that are going to enslave the human race, as long as it's all open source it's cool with me.
Swarm of robots... *shiver*
One word: Replicators
Open source software! Wise choice. Imagine paying licensing fee for each and individual robot.
LOOK! that one has stolen a euro coin and is using it as a wheel! they're thinking for and themselves!
*runs*
building themselves*
I literally laughed out loud with that one! Good show!
Swarm of robots... *shiver*
Swarm of double posts... *shiver*
:/ comment system...
*shiver* ?
"...which should come in useful..."
What the hell kind of proof reading is that Vladislav? Seriously Engadget, if you're paying anywhere close to $50k/yr with benefits, give me a job.
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/come+in+useful
http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/ask-teacher/16749-come-useful-handy.html
all right... must be a UK thing then. I had honestly never heard that phrase spoken or seen it written until this post. I suppose I'll allow it.
I pity whoever is paying you $50k pa. to inaccurately proofread articles on someone else's gadget blog
@j_g
Noted. Next time I'll remember the whole "global audience" thing. It won't make it any easier to read though. Flame on.
I love when people try to be dicks and it backfires.
Much more entertaining than the article.
I'm pretty sure Ohio isn't part of the UK and I've heard people say it both ways here.
It's not a UK exclusive. It could depend on the context though. Sounds perfectly normal to me. Handy/Useful are pretty interchangeable.
Full credit to Ross for being reasonable about it though. There's basically no-one else on the internet decent enough to admit to their mistakes.
It is worth noting that the SwarmRobot.org project has no aspirations (to my knowledge) to add wireless power to their systems. Hizook was referring to separate work on wirelessly powered robot swarms done by Travis Deyle and Matt Reynolds:
http://www.hizook.com/blog/2008/10/07/wirelessly-powering-swarm-robots
Great. So humans are banding together in the spirit of cooperation, inadvertently helping to plot our demise. Just great.....
Our BEES will blot out the sun!
sounds like a little GI Joe nanomite kinda think
I hate it when I get nanomites... the burn!
I, for one, welcome our kleptomaniacal swarm-bot overlords.
It took this long for someone to belt this one out? Because I was going to mention that I, for one, welcome stepping on our €1-sized robotic overlords. But then I wouldn't look original (or, at least, as original as one can be with that tired, old meme) anymore.