Invasion Of The Centibots

The Centibots project is a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)-funded joint venture between SRI International, Stanford University, the University of Washington, and ActivMedia to develop a network of autonomous robots that can be deployed by the military to map out hazardous areas, detect intruders, and locate “objects of value” such as injured people and prisoners. The Centibot researchers boast that the maps the machines collectively create are accurate to within a few centimeters, and the Centibots are also capable of finding and identifying objects, recognizing one another, and distinguishing between moving and stationary objects. The Centibots send the data they collect to a human commander, who does not need to give specific commands to each robot. “They autonomously decide where to go,” explains computer scientist Regis Vincent. “Nobody is controlling them.” Commanders can also view what specific Centibots are seeing through their PC cameras by wearing glasses with streaming video capability. The Centibots are constructed from commercially available components, while a Linux operating system is employed to support 1.2 million lines of code. DARPA has poured $2.2 million into the Centibots project, which has been in development for a year and a half. The Centibots’ inventors say the robots are ready to perform before their military backers.
Abstracted by the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center(NLECTC) from the SiliconValley.com (12/20/03); Ackerman, Elise.