More Robot Wars

Wednesday, February 13. 2013

Two stories on the slate:

Flying Microbots - BBC

British soldiers in Afghanistan will use tiny drones, the Black Hornet Nano drones, which weigh about 14g/half an ounce and measure around 4 x 1 inches (100mm x 25mm0. They carry a camera and can fly for about half an hour. Allows soldiers to see what is around without being in the line of fire. It's also part of what the Ministry of Defense calls a larger push for surveillance and intelligence-gathering tools.

Jumping Microbots - Physics.org

The three-legged jumping system begins life as a mold created by a 3-D printer. The robots are molded using soft silicone that allows them to stretch and flex. But where pneumatic robots are connected to tubing that pumps air, the jumping robots are connected to tubes that deliver a precisely controlled mix of methane and oxygen. Using high-voltage wires embedded in each leg of the robot, researchers deliver a spark to ignite the gases, causing a small explosion that sends the robot into the air.

Maybe HG Wells' Martian tripod fighting machines didn't so much walk as hopped

Trends to watch here: Small, soft bots in the air, meshed bots (the Internet of Flying Things) plus small controlled explosions. And print-your-own (war)bots.

Posted by Alan Patrick in Robotics at 22:13 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

6246 hits

< Orwell's 1984 was not a How To manual, but it is increasingly being treated as one | The Hidden costs of OTT TV >

Trackbacks

Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments

Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

No comments

Add Comment

Name
Email
Homepage
In reply to
Comment	Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (word), underscore are made via _word_. Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images. E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications. To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly. Enter the string from the spam-prevention image above:
	Remember Information? Subscribe to this entry