Om nom nom nom
The picture above is the E.A.T.R, or Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot. It doesn’t look particularly ominous, until you know how it fuels itself. This DARPA funded robot does not use batteries, gas or solar power but instead it uses organic materials. Onboard sensors find sources of biomass, a robotic arm grabs it and a small chainsaw cuts what it finds into small pieces. The fuel is then fed into a combustion chamber that burns the materials to power a steam engine. The ability to forage for its fuel will allow the E.A.T.R. to move far into areas that would normally be unaccesable to battery or gas powered robots. So are leaves and sticks really the only thing on the E.A.T.R’s menu, or should we start to worry about robots eating people and animals?
A drawing showing the parts of an E.A.T.R
When the E.A.T.R. was first announced, people’s reaction was one of fear, and rightfully so. Considering humans are organic matter, what would keep one of these robots from feeding on the general populace in order to keep moving toward its objective? The company that makes the combustion engine insist that the E.A.T.R will only eat vegetation:
“We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission,” said Harry Schoell, CEO of Cyclone Power Technologies. “We are focused on demonstrating that our engines can create usable, green power from plentiful, renewable plant matter.”
So at least in the time being, we don’t have to worry about waking up to a robot nibbling on our toes. Hopefully this concept is not developed to the point of absurdity, where we have to worry about carnivorous robots that love the taste of people.
::from Popular Science::
::photos from Francis Glover III/Robotic Technology, Inc.::
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Twitter Username: decembersun
says:
You know, the chainsaw component and the gripper, both in close proximity to each other, don’t look very promising for humanity.
Twitter Username: RobotArmageddon
says:
I know, and neither does the fact that the CEO of one of the companies making it needs to reiterate that it’s not made to eat people. If you need to say that a robot isn’t going to eat people, chances are it probably eventually will.
lol…@David. He said “If you need to say that a robot isn’t going to eat people, chances are it probably eventually will.”….that’s funny and pretty scary at the same time.