Swarms Of Tiny Robots To Monitor Water Pollution 182
savi writes "The University of Southern California School of Engineering has received a research grant to create swarms of microscopic robots to monitor potentially dangerous microorganisms in the ocean. Basically, nanoscale robots with electrical and mechanical components that can propel themselves, send signals, and do basic computations. "
The 'bots aren't real yet. (Score:5, Informative)
Also, from the article, they currently are trying to learn how to control 5-10 robots. They are a long way from learning how to control the millions of robots needed for any monitoring to be effective. The researches said that nanotechnology today is at the same stage of development as the Internet was in the late 1960's.
I'd say we are a decade or more from seeing any of these things actually released into the wild.