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Fire-Fighting Beetle

By Alex in Pictures on Aug 14, 2007 at 2:29 pm


German researchers are developing a fire-fighting beetle robot to battle forest fires:

Scientists in Germany are hard at work on an autonomous, pill-bug-like robot to be used to fight forest fires. It’s got legs like the little insect, and if the going gets too hot, it can retract them into its body. They’ll then be protected by the ceramic casing, which can withstand heat of up to 2,300 degrees.

Trucking along at 12 to 19 mph the bugbots could cover wide areas by being able to get close to the heat without getting burned. In fact, a team of merely 30 of the robots could cover an area as large as 4,400 square miles.

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  1. Sid Morrison
    Aug 14th, 2007 at 2:43 pm

    Looks like they are taking their cues from the Japanese who had that urban robotized corpse-remover posted on here a few weeks ago.

    Perhaps people should get nervous when these 2 powers start scheming along the same lines again...

  2. Sid Morrison
    Aug 14th, 2007 at 2:47 pm

    I forgot to add one thing... If you look at the picture, you'll note how smooth, mossy and free from debris the forest floor is. I've been to the Black Forest and the Ardennes and I don't remember them from being that different from typical North American forests, i.e. full of tangles of vines/underbrush and varied rocks, fallen treelimbs, and big piles of leaves. Their robo-bug friendly forest in the pictures seems pretty optimistic.

  3. Ali S.
    Aug 14th, 2007 at 5:23 pm

    Now all it needs is large glowing red eyes.

  4. CheeseDuck
    Aug 14th, 2007 at 5:51 pm

    And fangs! :D

  5. Vonskippy
    Aug 14th, 2007 at 6:00 pm

    Except for the errant campfire, those robots don't look like they have the water capacity to make much of a difference (compared to a water bomber that drops 52000 liters at one time).

  6. Mike
    Aug 14th, 2007 at 7:19 pm

    I don't think it uses water; it probably works similarly to a standard fire extinguisher.

  7. Ali S.
    Aug 14th, 2007 at 9:53 pm

    Now that I think of it...that beetle looks like it's farting in the woods.

    "If a robot beetle farts in the woods with no one around does it smell?"

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