But Mann is unfazed. He says the problems facing domestic robots will be solved, particularly when there is a breakthrough in battery technology. Instead of doing a lot of work in a short time, perhaps robots can work more slowly over a much longer time. This is the latest incarnation of a larger cleaning robot first developed with engineer George Katz in 1999. Mann says they borrowed the cleaner's navigation system from ants.
Ants lay trails of pheromone so they can follow paths to food sources or battle zones.
Using the same principle and a powered roller brush, our cleaner scrubs a swathe of kitchen floor by following its electronic nose - a sensor that can differentiate between patches of cleaned and uncleaned floor. The real question is whether such small machines could do anything useful. Individually, each could not do much, but collectively, like an ant colony, they might be able to do a lot. Your name, suburb and comments may be published in The Australian and on this site. We reserve the right to edit your submission.