Surveillance Robots Are Now Patrolling Our Mexican Border

New “Robotic Dogs” Climb Hills and Use Night Vision Cameras to Protect Us

One of the things I love to share with you each week is some of the latest innovations in exponential technologies. The Department of Homeland Security is testing four-legged robots along the Mexican border. The plan is to use them for surveillance. The robots are built by a company called Ghost Robotics. These robots are about two and a half feet high. They weigh 70 pounds, and they can travel seven and a half miles in 3 hours on a single battery charge.

They can navigate either autonomously, just give them a program and they'll walk the course, or they can be controlled manually, remotely by operators. These robotic dogs have thermal and night vision cameras, and they can navigate any environment that humans can, including walking stairs, climbing hills and handling rocky terrain. By being able to delegate the chores of being a sentry, we can dramatically expand our ability to protect our borders.

At the University of Wisconsin, engineers have created a nanofiber material that's better than bulletproof. It outperforms steel plates and Kevlar fabric. It's made of a combination of multi-walled, carbon nanotube cylinders, just one atom thick for each layer, and they intersperse that with Kevlar nanofibers. The resulting nanofiber mats dissipate energy from the impact of tiny projectiles moving faster than the speed of sound. This lays the groundwork for lightweight, high performance armor. This could be used in everything from bulletproof vests to shields around spacecraft, protecting them from asteroids and photon torpedoes. This is just one of the innovations being created in the field of exponential technologies. I talk about all of it in my book, The Truth About Your Future.