While I was expecting something completely different than what the video showed, it's still pretty damn impressive. Even though this was performed under pretty ideal conditions, it really shows the future potential of what's possible when you have a handful of robots each about a cubic inch able to pull a car. I would like to know how much they were actually pulling though, since it's a bit misleading to say the pulled a 3900lb car. I'd wager it only takes about 75 pounds(give or take) of force. Nonetheless, still impressive.

Edit: just saw it says 200N which another commenter says is about 45 pounds. I'd still say that's pretty sweet for such small trinkets.

That was one of the most disappointing robotic demonstrations and videos I've seen in a while. I fail to see the ant correlation. On the surface I don't see anything robotic, just a bunch of light winches operating in parallel (albeit with a nifty sticky footpad). Are they somehow autonomously synced, or just automatically load-limiting?

I'm not getting why this is supposed to be impressive. It just looks like they lined up several tiny motors and used a small gear ratio. There's very little ant-like cooperation.

Edit: large -> small

What is this a robot for ants? It has to be at least 3 times as large!

I'm curious how much electricity did the robots use to move the car? How much distance over what amount of time? Can we get a video of these robots dragging away a human so that doomsayers can panic more?

They moved a 2-ton car... on wheels, on sealed concrete, with winches...

Im curious of application. So, hypothetically, they can infinitely scale the net force required to number of robots. However, the movement speed stays at < meter/hour.

Is the next step ensuring absolute precision? What about terrain with minimal friction to hold on to? How does the "ant" "latch on" to arbitrarilly shaped /sized objects? Is it possible to lift the objects onto wheeled bots to enable accelleration or are we trapped at slow speeds?

Its important to note that currently these robots pull but do not push. So for high precision heavy objects movement I think if space, more specifically, when I want to dock my shuttle at a doace station. Unfortunately, only pulling will cause acceleration that would still need to be offset somehow. So, i am not exactly sure where else to gigantic objects need to be slowly and precisely moved by tiny little robots.

That being said, Im excited to find out

INDIAN MAN PULLS LOCOMOTIVE WITH PONY TAIL:

http://abc7news.com/archive/8816949/

They pulled a 2 Ton Car.

From the actual paper [1]

A team of six [bots] pulls with [combined] forces exceeding 200 N.

[1] http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=7407333

Here's another story on it, including a video

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2016/03/watch-100-grams-of-robot-p...

I want to know what sort of future-world all of these naysayers live in that 6 tiny robots, together weighing only slightly more than half my smartphone, pulling any load larger than a bread basket, is not impressive. I know for a fact I could not build such small robots to pull anything over a few pounds. I know because I once tried on a whim (the details don't matter). Did someone invent lassos for ants and ant training regimens while I wasn't looking, or something?

"Modeled after Superman, I can move a 2-ton car."

Am I the only one who's mind immediately thought about the ocean's eleven style heist capabilities these ants could provide?

There are too many feats of strengths that pull a car, truck, airplane, heavy thing on wheels,etc. Stay tuned after this commercial as these robots prepare to do the impossible! It makes me kinda tune out the video.

It be cool to see if they had some ant like behaviour, like robots recruiting more robots.

It's also how muscles work, isn't it? A ton of tiny myosin heads pulling in parallel.

The video is a bit misleading: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbTCW9CVHLA

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Fascinating stuff! But why are so many video clips of this kind accompanied by irrelevant musical backing? Are interested viewers incapable of listening to a commentary without added garbage. I use the word because it is indeed a useless addition to the presentation. Or is it there to test my powers of concentration? I don't think so.