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A Maryland company under contract to the Pentagon is working to create a robot that eats dead bodies.
It's true. Robotic Technology Inc. is building a steam-powered robot that would fuel itself by gobbling up whatever organic material it can find - grass, wood, old furniture, even dead bodies.
They call it EATR, Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot. The company's Web site states, 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."
EATR would be beneficial in war zones where bodies would be considered "organically-based energy source." 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.
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.
It's true. Robotic Technology Inc. is building a steam-powered robot that would fuel itself by gobbling up whatever organic material it can find - grass, wood, old furniture, even dead bodies.They call it EATR, Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot. The company's Web site states, 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."
EATR would be beneficial in war zones where bodies would be considered "organically-based energy source." 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.
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.
