Future Military Robots to Feed on Organic Material

Posted 16 Jul 2009 at 14:28 UTC by Rog-a-matic

Maryland-based Robotic Technology Inc. is developing a steam-powered robot that can fuel itself by consuming organic material - plants, wooden structures, and even animals and humans. "EATR", the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot, can also run on conventional and alternative fuels such as gasoline, propane, coal and French fry grease using a Waste Heat Engine developed by Cyclone Power Technology of FL. The military hopes to incorporate the technology into future battleground machines capable of surviving for years on their own.

Company Denies its Robots Feed on Animals/Humans, posted 19 Jul 2009 at 01:13 UTC by Rog-a-matic » (Master)

According to this Wired article, Robotic Technology Inc., says its biomass engine will only consume small plant-based items such as twigs, not animal or human flesh.

One of the engineers responds, posted 21 Jul 2009 at 19:23 UTC by steve » (Master)

Francis Govers III emailed saying,

Hi! I'm one of the engineers working on EATR, and just wanted to let you know that EATR has no ability to deal with protiens - meat - at all. It can only "digest" or process plant material, and it prefers dried out leaves, twigs, and branches-in other words, dead plants. We don't have any way to convert animal parts into energy. You can see more at my blog. We do appreciate that you found our project interesting.