In the near future, the very mention of SlugBot could send waves of terror through the slug community, while farmers will sing its praises.
A prototype robot capable of hunting down over 100 slugs an hour and using their rotting bodies to generate electricity is being developed by engineers at the University of West England's Intelligent Autonomous Systems Laboratory.
The SlugBot is an attempt to build the world's first fully autonomous robot. When completed, the SlugBot will be the first robot to work completely independent of human care. It won't even need help to recharge its batteries.
Courtesy of Intellegent Autonomous Systems Laboratory of UWE
By using an arm with a 360-degree reach and specialized light sensors, the SlugBot can detect slugs among vegetation and rocks in a field.
.. http://www.ias.uwe.ac.uk/goto.html?slugbot
.. http://www.wired.com/news/gizmos/0,1452,47156,00.html#