iRobot Developing ”Ember” LANdroid

Writing by Evan Ackerman on Monday, 18 of May , 2009 at 3:39 am

iRobot, in its infinite wisdom, seems to have decided to start releasing information on development projects and prototypes on their PackBot Facebook page. Yes, PackBot has its own official Facebook page. So, this was breaking news as of about two months ago, but apparently nobody noticed until Robot Stock News (in a moment of boredom, I can only assume) Facebooked them. Anyway, you may be familiar with the LANdroid program from back in 2007, the goal of which is to develop a swarm of ‘disposable’ (i.e. $100ish) robots capable of creating a adaptive wireless network in urban environment. You might also remember that iRobot got a chunk of DARPA funding to try to make it happen, and here’s the result: ‘Ember.’

Ember weighs in at only a pound, and is about the size of a small paperback book. Like its cousin the PackBot, Ember uses flippers to help it climb obstacles and self-right. It accepts just about any kind of USB or SDIO radio payloads, including 802.11 WiFi, cellular, Bluetooth, Zigbee, etc.. Also like the PackBot, it’s robust enough to be thrown, and has some kind of onboard obstacle avoidance (eventually it should be semi-autonomous), mounts a small camera on top, and looks to be controlled by a little tiny touchscreen.

Ember is still a prototype (it’s at stage one of the DARPA program), but it looks like it more or less works. Also, it’s kinda interesting just how much Ember looks like the original DARPA concept. One more pic, after the jump.

[ iRobot PackBot on Facebook ] VIA [ RSN ]

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Category: Concepts,Military,Research,Security

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