What kind of robots are recommanded for communicating each robot?

ctrkwang1

I have been trying to find robots for my curiousity.
The robot I want to find is that small (smaller than hand, in general) size robots that can communicate each other using signals (siganl chips or wifi chips somthing like that...sorry).
Can I purchase those type of robots from MIT or other researh group? or should I make personalized one?
Thanks for your helps!!
I am so excited for your comments!

Mike Green

You're not going to be able to purchase a robot from MIT or a research group unless you have tens of thousands of dollars or more to spend. They're in the business of doing research and making hardware for their own use. What do you want your robot to do? What kind of sensors do you want to have (sound, vision, object sensing)? What kind of effectors do you want (wheels, grippers, sound generation)? What do you want your robots to be able to do?

Take a look at some of the robots that Parallax makes. The ActivityBot has wheels and a controller (the Propeller) that can handle additional sensors like an object (sonar) sensor or IR object sensing. There's a socket and some software for an xBee wireless module one of which can do WiFi. You can get a gripper add-on, even add a video sensor (low resolution). You could alternatively get a Scribbler-3 which is designed for ready-to-go educational use with some pre-programmed functionality, You can add an xBee module and/or PING distance sensor via the "hacker" port, but you'll need to mount these on the plastic case. The ARLO is a larger,more powerful base for robotics that can use the same controller as the ActivityBot.

Maybe you'll want to use a RaspberryPi for high-level processing (maybe video and networking too) with a Propeller for low level control (on an ARLO platform so you can carry the larger batteries needed). It depends on what you want to do, how much you can afford, and how much work you want to do.