Chembot, the chemical robot
DARPA initiated the development of a chemical robot. iRobot has demonstrated the first prototype.
I have posted an article on the Chembot a year ago. According to the original proposal from DARPA, in just 2 years a prototype approximately the size of a softball - i.e. 10cm across - must achieve all this:
- travel a distance of 5 meters at a speed of 0.25 meters/minute;
- achieve a 10-fold reduction in its largest dimension; and
- squeeze through a 1 cm opening of arbitrary geometry and reconstitute its original size and shape, in 15 seconds.
- and ultimately biodegradable.
iRobot has developed a prototype that you can see in the attached video. As you will see: there is a solution for every problem!