【轉貼】英研發變形金剛 真實版來了

早上看到這則新聞，感到很興奮。雖說類似的想法不是第一遭發佈，但這樣的企圖一直以來就是心中有關建築夢想的一部份。轉貼給大家瞧瞧！

【聯合報╱編譯田思怡／報導】2008.03.14 03:47 am

英國每日郵報報導，英國科學家將以460萬英鎊（台幣2.87億元），仿照電影「變形金剛」中可任意改變形狀的機器人，打造真實版的變形金剛來幫忙救人。
這項實驗將建造成群的小機器人，每個機器人如方糖般大，能自行移動，並連結成一個較大、具有人工智慧的機器人。
研究員說，第一批會自動行動、有智慧而且會變形的機器人，可望在5年內上陣。西英格蘭大學和約克大學研究小組的一名發言人說：「這些機器人可用於醫療、太空探測、研究和救難任務。」
這名發言人說：「你可以想像在一棟建築物倒塌後，把千百個小機器人扔進縫隙內，它們會自動找到彼此，也許連結成一個蛇形的機器人，在瓦礫中蠕動，也許再變形成一隻會爬牆的蜘蛛，或是可移開瓦礫的機器手臂，有無限可能。」
每個機器人都有輪子或觸手，可單獨行動，並內裝小型的電腦頭腦，和iPod或iPhone一樣聰明，利用紅外線找到彼此進行連結。
一旦連結在一起，這些方糖般的機器人可分享能源、運算能力，創造出和筆記型電腦一樣聰明的變形金剛。西英格蘭大學教授溫菲爾德說，變形金剛不會對人類構成威脅。
他說：「這些機器人集結在一起，會更多變，像是水母或海綿的細胞。不同的機器人可合作創造出更大的有機體。」
在電影「變形金剛」中，外星來的機器人入侵地球，偽裝成汽車、機車和貨車，互相發動戰爭。
這項稱為「Symbrion」的計畫由歐盟出資。

【News From Daily Mail】

Real-life Transformers: Shape-changing robots could help save livesBy DAVID DERBYSHIRE

It sounds like something straight from a children's comic.
But British scientists will today take the first steps in an astonishing project to create the first real-life Transformers - the science fiction robots which can change shape at will.
The £4.6million experiment will attempt to build swarms of tiny robots, each the size of a sugar cube, that move around on their own and connect together to form larger, intelligent machines.
Researchers say the first swarm of autonomous, intelligent, shape-changing robots could be in use within five years.
"They could be used in medicine, in space exploration and in search and rescue missions," said a spokesman for scientists at the University of the West of England in Bristol and the University of York.
"You can imagine dropping hundreds of these small robots into a crevice after a building has collapsed. They would find each other and maybe connect together to form a snake-shaped object that could wriggle through the wreckage.
"Then they could re-form into a spider to climb over a wall - or a robot with an arm that could lift rubble away. The possibilities are endless."
Each robot would have wheels or tentacles, allowing it to move around independently.
It would contain a small computer brain, making it as intelligent as an iPod or iPhone, and use infra-red to find other cubes.
Once connected, the cubes would be able to share energy and computing power, creating a machine with the intelligence of a computer laptop.
The scientists have yet to work out how the swarms would connect together. But their connections would need to double up as joints, so that the resulting larger machine could move around.
The Symbrion project, announced to mark National Science and Engineering Week, is funded by the EU.
The robots will also be able to manage their own hardware and software and will be "self-healing and selforganising", the researchers say.
Professor Alan Winfield, of the University of the West of England, denied that they could pose a threat to humans.
"The robots have functionality on their own, but they can also combine together or adapt and change as the situation requires," he said.
"The individual robots won't change physically, but they will adapt and evolve their functionality.
"Once the robots come together they will be more versatile - like a colony of cells such as those found in a jelly fish or a sponge.
"The different robots will co-operate to create the larger organism. In a sponge even if there is damage to some parts, the overall organism still survives.
"In this way the artificial robotic organisms might in theory become self-configuring, self-healing and self-optimising from both hardware and software perspectives."
The project has echoes of last year's Transformers film in which alien robots trapped on Earth disguise themselves as cars, motorbikes and lorries to wage war on each other.