Micro Robots

What's cooler than a robot? A micro-robot. What's cooler than that? A swarm of them , organizing effortlessly, like ants, to accomplish complicated tasks in parallel and on a small scale, like the manufacture of circuit boards or other products, and dealing effortlessly with both solids and liquids. Sound interesting? It does to SRI International , who has developed and patented a technology called Diamagnetic Micro Manipulation (DM3).

It uses "printed circuit boards to drive and control micro-robots built from simple, low-cost magnets that are propelled electromagnetically. This could enable cost-effective production of large numbers of micro-robots that can reliably handle a wide variety of solid and liquid materials - including electronics. ... [Their] vision is to enable an assembly head containing thousands of micro-robots to manufacture high-quality macro-scale products while providing millimeter-scale structural control. For example, some micro-robots will carry components (electronic as well as mechanical, such as truss elements), some micro-robots will deposit liquids, and others will perform in situ quality analysis. Mounted to a mobile robotic base, a micro-factory will be able to build parts of practically any size."

Have a look at their statement on an ongoing DARPA Open Manufacturing proposition for Microfactories for smart manufacturing . These scare me more than Big-Dog . Lets hope they can never self replicate and swarm by the millions .