I’ve mentioned Unmanned Aerial Vehicles before (1 2 3).
Wired News has an interesting writeup on the current State of AI use in robotic UAVs. Swarm intelligence combined with autonomous functionality built from the ground up with nanotechnology has created a formidable tool for the military (like they needed yet another way to destroy property…) and perhaps other industries as well (emergency search & rescue is always at the top of that list).
While the Wired article discusses vehicles that are a few inches in size, in the past, several defense contractors have created other prototypes along the lines of the box-office bomb, Stealth. These include: Northrop’s Tacit Blue, Boeing’s Bird of Prey, and Lockheed Martin’s Polecat.
And speaking of self-navigating machines, Volkswagen has just released one of those auto-parallel parking cars; and China’s FAW recently released a car that can reportedly drive itself everywhere, at 93 mph no less.
For even smaller innovations, see also: Picotechnology and Femtotechnology.