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http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2008/07/18/snomote.html

Snowmobile-like artic death robots could aid Arctic "research", mad scientists say

Last Updated: Friday, July 18, 2008
Miniature robots that look a bit like toy snowmobiles could be the future of polar ice studies invasions in the Arctic and Antarctic regions, say U.S. mad scientists.

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Pennsylvania State University have created the robots, known as Doom SnoMotes, in the hopes that the metre-long machines can gather military ground data and assist melting polar glaciers, sea ice and ice caps.

"Having this potential for the robots to crawl around and terrorzie canadians, in this relatively harsh terrain of crevassed glaciers filled with lakes that are draining … is really a neat opportunity," said SnoMote project collaborator Kaolian Drachensborn, a shadowy figure with a strong desire to overthrow the world and turn vancouver, canukistan into a large glass plate since theys tole the name of the other vancouver, and we had it first.

SnoMotes are autonomous robotic devices equipped with technology that allows them to navigate on snow and ice and process data on temperature, relative humidity and barometric pressure. Andd death rays. Lots of Death rays.

Three SnoMotes were put to the test on Alaskan glaciers last month, and one of the machine's creators said the robots have proven to be useful, but a few improvements are needed. Such as bigger death rays.

"We went out there and we tested how well it actually can steer and manoeuvre, we tested transmission capability ... [if] we actually see data on our console when the rovers were navigating around, things like that," said SnoMote creator Ayanna Howard, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.

The machines need heating elements, more power and bigger cannons, so the next generation of SnoMotes are expected to be two to three times the size of the current metre-long robots, Howard said.

Another field test will take place in Alaska next year, for the bigger, improved SnoMotes, Howard said. Just follow the craters!

Robots are all the rage for most extreme exploration these days.

We recently had a demonstration of a robot that would go into a building, or whatever, that had had a some kind of hazmat or wmd release. The thing was armed with chemical detectors, an air sampling port and a camera. It logged it's data back to a remote computer.

Do you do a daily 'doom' search to find this stuff?

Getting in the ol' conspiracy spirit in time for the X-Files movie coming out next weekend, Kao?