DARPA develops Wi-Fi robots
DARPA has done it again. The Defense Advance Research Projects Agency wants to blanket your favorite neighborhood war zone with wireless internet. Just how do they plan on achieving this seemingly impossible task? With robots, of course. The agency has submitted a proposal to begin developing Wi-Fi toting wheeled robots. Dubbed "Landroids" (kind of rolls off the tongue, no?), these babies will be able to autonomously rove through a predetermined area. Designed to move in groups, the mass of Landroids will provide a daisy-chained blanket of wireless internet connectivity. If one happens to meet an unfortunate end, the rest automatically compensate for their missing friend, assuring an uninterrupted stream of official government business.
[Via VashNYC]
Is this going to be an open network(lol) or will it be secure, last thing I want is to end up getting arrested for using them to brow the web. But now I wonder where and how this would be deployed?
I’m having trouble imagining how these things would be deployed. I’m sure there will be people that might shoot these things on sight, if these bots show up on their property.
Re: the AI in these things, if that happens, will the others run? or will they try to compensate for their fallen comrade? Or will they avenge it’s death? Hmm…better get started on that EMP device…
Sounds expensive for just wi-fi access. Our tax dollars at work I guess.