Despite the name of the article, the robot actually isn't a "Transformer: Robots in Disguise" type of robot. It's more of collective entity. Nevertheless, it would be impressive to see them accomplish such a thing. However, the bold claim that 5 years would be enough to create such robots, is just too ambitious. There are too many issues involving this. Here's a short list of some critical issues:
The "sugar cube" sized robots, are extremely small. The fact that the robot would be able to accomplish something so ambitious, yet remain so small, has problems. Let's look at some of the things that it would need to fit in a "sugar cube":
- A processor that has the processing capability of an iPhone
- A device/mechanism/motor that will allow it to manipulate its "tentacles"/"wheels"
- An infrared device
- An optical device for it to "see"
- A power source that could power all these components for at least long enough for this robot to be useful
Now obviously there's going to a lot more components (i.e. the robots have to be able to communicate with each other, and share power/cpu when attached to each other). The biggest problem i can see, is power supply. Now, these robots are suppose to be able to come together to "transform" into, a snake, or an arm, or whatever... but think of how much power is required for them to be "a robot with an arm that could lift rubble away"...
Not only that, check out the other claims: "The robots will also be able to manage their own hardware and software and will be "self-healing and selforganising", the researchers say."
I'm not saying it's impossible, but FIVE YEARS? ... unless by sugar cubes, they mean really BIG sugar cubes...
oh well, we'll see, 5 years from now...
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