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McLurkin, 32, has come a long way since that first machine. Now a graduate student in computer science at M.I.T., the young scientist is on the forefront of developing "swarmbots"--packs of dozens of small robots that communicate with one another and work in harmony to complete an assignment. They have no centralized command system and can cover vast terrain; if one is destroyed, others fill in. His 112 titanium robots resemble small car batteries on wheels. McLurkin is working with a team at iRobot, a private Boston-based robotics firm, to find practical uses for his fleet of 4-in.-high units. McLurkin envisions that his swarm could map terrain on Mars or search for survivors in the aftermath of an earthquake. "If you want to know what's inside a cave, you can send in an Army Ranger--or an army of robots," he says of his fleet's lifesaving potential. Rodney Brooks, director of M.I.T.'s artificial-intelligence lab, says the scope of McLurkin's work is remarkable. "A lot of us have worked on insect-robot things," he says, "but James has taken the technology farther than anyone else." Indeed, last year McLurkin won the prestigious Lemelson-M.I.T. prize for inventiveness and creativity.
McLurkin's machines were inspired by nature. As an undergraduate at M.I.T., he became interested in ants and kept a terrarium full of them on his desk. The decentralized nature of ant colonies gave him a model for his robots. "I worked on the notion of using virtual pheromones [the biochemical scents that some animals use to communicate]," he says. "As one robot gathers knowledge, it spreads it to its neighbors, and they spread it to their neighbors." Despite his success, McLurkin still gets a high-schoolish kick out of playing with his robots. Attendees at an iRobot holiday party two years ago were treated to the sounds of the first ever swarm orchestra. McLurkin had programmed the robots to arrange themselves into different instrument sections and play Christmas carols. What could be next? "A swarm marching band," he chuckles. "They'll play American standards." --By Carolina A. Miranda
RESCUER BY REMOTE NEED HELP? SEND IN THE ROBOT
Within 24 hours of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, Robin Murphy was on the scene with a team of robots to help sort through the debris. It was the first real-world test of the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue in Tampa, Fla., the only unit of its kind on the planet. Rescue workers at ground zero, accustomed to using trained dogs and cameras mounted on poles to look for survivors and human remains and test for structural weaknesses, soon saw the advantage of cyberhelpers. "Search cams typically penetrate only 18 ft., and the heat was melting the heads off some of them," says Murphy, 46, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of South Florida. "Our robots are able to go 60 ft. through rubble that's still on fire."