Robots That Eat Bugs and Plants for Power

Controversial robots devour biomass to gain energy
independence.

No matter how intelligent a robot might be, it’s nice knowing
you can pull its plug to halt the anti-human insurrection.
Whoops, not anymore. A new cohort of ’bots that make energy
by gobbling organic matter could be the beginning of truly
autonomous machines.

This first wave of biomass-munching robots has been designed
with safe, slow, long-term vocations in mind, such as
surveillance, clearing land mines, or monitoring sewer pipes
and other locales too dark for solar cells. Take EcoBot II,
the tambourine-size fly-eating machine built by Bristol
Robotics Laboratory in England. Engineers hand-feed this
robot insects, which it digests in a microbial fuel
cell—essentially a tank of sludgy bacteria and oxygen—that
converts the insects into electricity. An eight-fly meal can
drive it up to seven feet.

EATR (for Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot),
a car-size military reconnaissance ’bot, will forage more
actively. The Darpa-funded concept vehicle from Robert
Finkelstein of Robotic Technology in Washington, D.C., will
use cameras and radar-like sensors to spot twigs and leaves.
It will then chop up food and toss it into a combustion
chamber built by engineer Harry Schoell. Schoell’s steam
engine runs on anything that burns and will get EATR around
100 miles per 150 pounds of vegetation. Both the EcoBot and
EATR teams are working on software to help the robots
conserve energy during lean times, and a full EATR prototype
should be scavenging by 2011.

For those inclined to fear an autonomous, chainsaw-wielding
robot, take comfort that its programming will restrict it to
only grabbing morsels that match the shape, color and texture
of plant life. “It won’t consume a chocolate layer cake,
because it won’t recognize it as food,” Finkelstein says.
“And it certainly won’t go running after animals.”