The hungry vegetarian robot: Here we have Cyclone Power building , what it calls a beta biomass engine system that will be the heart of what's known as the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR) being developed by Robotic Technologies. The purpose of EATR is to develop an autonomous robotic platform able to perform long-range, long-endurance missions without the need for manual or conventional refueling - in other words it needs to "eat." According to researchers, the EATR system gets its energy by foraging, or what the firms describe as "engaging in biologically-inspired, organism-like, energy-harvesting behavior which is the equivalent of eating. It can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment as well as use conventional and alternative fuels when suitable."