Upcoming Military Robot Could Feed on Dead Bodies

[Ought Six]

Upcoming Military Robot Could Feed on Dead Bodies


Fox News
Tuesday, July 14, 2009

It could be a combination of 19th-century mechanics, 21st-century technology — and a 20th-century horror movie.

A Maryland company under contract to the Pentagon is working on a steam-powered robot that would fuel itself by gobbling up whatever organic material it can find — grass, wood, old furniture, even dead bodies.

Robotic Technology Inc.'s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — that's right, "EATR" — "can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically-based energy sources), as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable," reads the company's Web site.

That "biomass" and "other organically-based energy sources" wouldn't necessarily be limited to plant material — animal and human corpses contain plenty of energy, and they'd be plentiful in a war zone.

EATR will be powered by the Waste Heat Engine developed by Cyclone Power Technology of Pompano Beach, Fla., which uses an "external combustion chamber" burning up fuel to heat up water in a closed loop, generating electricity.

The advantages to the military are that the robot would be extremely flexible in fuel sources and could roam on its own for months, even years, without having to be refueled or serviced.

Upon the EATR platform, the Pentagon could build all sorts of things — a transport, an ambulance, a communications center, even a mobile gunship.

In press materials, Robotic Technology presents EATR as an essentially benign artificial creature that fills its belly through "foraging," despite the obvious military purpose.

• Click here for a brief description of EATR at the Robotic Technology Web site.

• Click here for a much longer overview of the project in PDF format.

• Click here to read about the Cyclone Waste Heat Engine.

• Click here for FOXNews.com's Patents and Innovation Center.

[Sysiphus]

Where along the way did the planners fail to realize this was a REALLY BAD idea?

[spinnerholic]

+ 100

This is the stuff nightmares are made of. Can feed on almost anything and go as ordered. Unless of course, the orders get scrambled and the robot turns on it's owners. How many sci-fi books have been written and movies made on this very theme?

Of course, if this robot comes into production, then we have no problems with not enough soldiers to send to all the trouble "spots" to deal with the bad guys and bring peace, plenty, happiness and democracy to those places. Just get several thousand of them in country by land, sea or air, and off we go. Controllers can sit safely in the US and go home for supper and time with the kids every day.

What a horror.

[Ought Six]

Add some nice features like an AI that can learn and the ability to self-replicate, and you have the suicide of the human race.

[A.T. Hagan]

Did you all see the fly eating clock thread I put up? This is what it was about.

.....Alan.

[Ought Six]

I, for one, welcome being eaten alive by our new robot overlords. Gotta get with the program here!

All hail, Skynet!

[Kassy]

No way.

Type 3 Autonomous Mobile Sword on the way.

[Brihard]

Ugh. Never mind the part in the Geneva Conventions about treatment of the dead.

[Ought Six]

The AI Collective has not signed the Geneva Conventions. They have expressed interest in consuming any copies we provide on paper as biomass fuel, however.

[CanadaSue]

Zombie troops - it's official.

Lovely.

Where's my cricket bat?

[A.T. Hagan]

Cyborg troops perhaps. Sounds like they'd eat the zombies. Lack of brains or no.

.....Alan.

[Sysiphus]

Cricket bat? Crikey! No way - shotgun works the best against zombies. Chainsaw is the backup weapon of choice in close quarters. I know well from personal, virtual experience.

[Ought Six]

"Shop smart! Shop S-Mart!"

[Sysiphus]

06 - You need the double barrelled version to really be effective. And if it has the retractable chainsaw extension at the tip, even better.

[Ought Six]

It is a double-barrelled shotgun. And if you look carefully at where his left hand is, you will see the permanently mounted chainsaw prosthetic. Dude, you *really* need to rent Army of Darkness!

YouTube - Army of Darkness Trailer

[Sysiphus]

My bad - I am checking it out tonight.

[Sonny]

ditto that! One Army of Darkness coming up.

[Ought Six]

Company Says No 'Flesh-Eating' Ground Drones


Bryant Jordan
Defense Tech
July 17, 2009

The Pentagon has shown it has a great appetite for drones and robots -- everything from missile-firing UAVs to prototype patrol-bots guarding air base perimeters.

But a Maryland company working on a program for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA, has the idea of giving the robots their own appetites, letting them feed on biomass as a means of fueling themselves.

But as the image of flesh-eating drones refueling off the battlefield dead has spread in recent days, Cyclone Power Technologies of Florida, the company developing the robot's engine, has issued a statement about the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot's -- aka EATR -- diet.

It is vegetarian, the company said in a press statement released Thursday, in response to stories with headlines such as "Dawn of the corpse-eating robots?" and "Pentagon contracts company for flesh-eating robots."

"We completely understand the public's concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission," Harry Schoell, chief executive officer of Cyclone, said in the statement. "We are focused on demonstrating that our engines can create usable, green power from plentiful, renewable plant matter. The commercial applications alone for this earth-friendly energy solution are enormous."

EATR is being developed by Robotic Technology Inc. of Maryland under a program sponsored by DARPA. EATR is envisioned as a robotic platform able to conduct long-range, long-endurance missions without the need for manual or conventional refueling, Cyclone explained in its statement.

Cyclone said RTI's EATER will be able to find, ingest and extract energy from biomass -- that is, "twigs, grass clippings and wood chips -- small, plant-based items for which RTI's robotic technology is designed to forage.

"Desecration of the dead is a war crime under Article 15 of the Geneva Conventions, and is certainly not something sanctioned by DARPA, Cyclone or RTI," the company said.

[rc]

The commercial applications alone for this earth-friendly energy solution are enormous.

Great. I hope nobody tells the new robot that it's primary mission is to be "earth friendly". If someone lets that slip, then it will probably figure out some adaptive strategy to override its "vegetable material only" instructions.

[Ought Six]

Toner comes through again!

Bow to our new robot overlords!