In all the futuristic visions of robotic technology, there’s always one buzzkill that brings them back to reality: the power source. How do you keep robots rolling smoothly? The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is funding the development of a robot that may have the answer to this.
According to company president Dr. Robert Finkelstein, Robotic Technology, Inc. of Potomac, Md., is developing the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR), an unmanned vehicle robot designed to collect biomass — leaves, wood, grass, anything combustible — and use it through burning to fuel itself.
“The idea is to have a robotic ground vehicle that can go out on long-range, long-endurance missions without human intervention,” says Finkelstein, describing it as the ground equivalent of long-range unmanned air vehicles. The EATR will be able to retrieve items of interest as well, or act as a weapons platform.
“In order to avoid refueling, it will forage, like an animal, obtaining its own energy from the environment by finding and ingesting biomass from the environment,” he adds. “It might have a satellite link back to a control center where it can make reports, but it doesn’t need to be continuously controlled.”
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