Our dark future imitates our art in the Tarantulas project (The All-terRain Advanced NeTwork of Ubiquitous MobiLe Asynchronous Systems. Project.) Small robots that can communicate and work together without a central command.
We can send in a swarm of robots, say to search a building on fire, to search for human survivors. One group can be in charge of searching, while another group is equipped with video transmission equipment.
Tarantulas use a relative positioning system to determine where they are in relation to each other, saving them power as they don’t need GPS. Working prototypes due in March or April this year should be able to accompany your favorite camera-headed police dog into the third-act inferno of tomorrow.
Project Overview [A-Star.EDU via WMMNA]
