from the mechanoplankton dept.
According to a press release (9 January 2002), the Laboratory for Molecular Robotics (LMR) at the University of Southern California School of Engineering has received $1.5 million research grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to create swarms of microscopic robots. The application envisioned for such a system is to monitor potentially dangerous microorganisms in the ocean.
According to Ari Requicha, a USC professor of computer science and the project's principal investigator, the project spans the fields of nanotechnology, robotics, computer science and marine biology, but is centered on the development of the ultra-small robotic sensors and software systems to control them. Requicha said it will be possible to build nanoscale devices with electrical and mechanical components so that the devices could propel themselves, send electronic signals and even compute. While individual nanoscale devices would have limited computing power and capability, the plan is to have vast numbers of them operating in concert.
Requicha said that nanotechnology today is at the same stage of development as the Internet was in the late 1960's. "The idea that we'll have swarms of nanorobots in the ocean is no more far-fetched than the idea of connecting millions of computers was then," he said. "I don't think these robots will be confined to the ocean. We will eventually make robots to hunt down pathogens or repair cells in the human body."
Read more for additional details on this ambitious project.
