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back to article US troops to scatter crawling Wi-Fi mini-droids

DARPA*, the occasionally eccentric American death-tech hothouse, has come up with a scheme to develop "LANdroids", small crawling radio-relay robots the size of a deck of cards. The idea is that the diminutive, cheap, expendable droids would be scattered about by US troops on foot. They would then link up to form a wireless …

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  1. Cavan

    The Sun is now advising the US military?

    Just take a look at the photo, theres the proof right there; in case you were unable to picture the size of a pack of playing cards, and how the lAndroid would compare. (no built in antennas? surely that'd keep the size down.)

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Roomba

    Wifi Roomba's could sweep up as they deploy

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  3. MacroRodent

    Movement is silly

    If they are going to make these expendable, it would be better to make them much smaller and cheaper by omitting the locomotion mechanism. Then the coverage problem could be solved by simply scattering more of these. I suspect the guys who come up with the concept were just childishly fascinated by the notion of these toy-tank -like things crawling around the battlefield.

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  4. James Penketh

    Could you imagine...

    ...how quickly these would get stolen if they were deployed?

    I mean, they're not exactly going to be quick, so what (apart from the guy with the M16) is stopping you from picking up one of these toys^H^H^H^H devices and having a tinker?

    Could you imagine the devastation if captured WiFi robots were rigged with explosives? (Yeah, I know they're not very big, so they're not likely to have much room (if any) inside. But these people are very inventive when it comes to IEDs*.)

    * Improvised Explosive Devices

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  5. Ishkandar

    Retrieval !!

    I'm sure the "enemy" non-cobmatants will gladly clear up after they have departed and modify these little robots so that they can be recycled into non-suicide bombs to be used against their previous owners !!

    I believe Sun Tzu mentioned something about "making war support war" some 2,500 years ago !!

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  6. Jeff Silver

    Did we need another neologism?

    "Dismounted warfighter" ?? Is that what used to be called an infantryman?

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  7. James Cleveland

    Wardriving

    Anyone up for a spot?

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