Top five killer robots

Fwd Tech  Wednesday 27 May 2009

Introducing five killer robots. The Terminator? He couldn't even make our top five...

In honour of Terminator: Salvation’s imminent release and Five’s screening of Terminator: Rise of the Machines on Sunday May 31 at 9pm, we bring you the Gadget Show’s top Five Killer robots (and just so you know, by killer we mean awesome)...

1. LRRY Like Arnie in the original Terminator we want our robots big and scary. Just one look at LRRY and you’d think he was a Terminator’s pet. Okay, so LRRY’s not exactly the toughest name for a ‘killer robot’, but you wouldn’t laugh in his face – he’d probably breathe fire at you from his nostrils. Powered by an old 2CV engine, LRRY’s the sort of machine you only see in your nightmares… or in post-apocalyptic films.

2. Mondo Spider What scares big, butch Terminators? Nothing right? Wrong! How about a big mechanical spider? The Mondo Spider is a giant eight-legged mechanical spider you can ride that’s been made up of old motorbike parts and reclaimed metal. It weighs about the same as a small car and cost £20,000 to make. Seeing this drop down from the ceiling would be enough to send the shivers down anyone’s back!

3. Modular robots Not so much scary, as scarily intelligent. These Modular Robots being developed at Pennsylvania University have the ability to fix themselves. Each module of the ‘robot’ contains an LED that blinks and ‘chats’ to the other modules. They then calculate their relative proximity and start moving towards each other, before putting themselves back together using magnets. It’s a bit like Robert Patrick’s T-1000 in Terminator 2. Just a very early version of it.

4. ASIMO An acronym for Advance Step in Innovation Mobility, Honda’s ASIMO is a humanoid robot that looks a bit like an astronaut and walks on its own. It can’t put its fist through a car windscreen or run as fast as the T-1000 (it can run at 6km an hour), but it’s one of the most advanced humanoid robots on the planet today.

5. Festo Aqua Jellyfish Okay, now we’re talking. Jellyfish notoriously look alien. So couple that with some robotics and you’ve got some scary stuff going on. The Festo Aqua Jellyfish have been created are intelligent autonomous robots that react to their surroundings thanks to pressure sensors. They also have light and radio sensors to work with other robots. Don’t go in the water Arnie…