Danger bots

An army of 1000 millimetre-scale robots capable of exploration and inspection work in hazardous environments is to be built under a Euro4.4 million European project.
The I-SWARM (Intelligent Small World Autonomous Robots for Micro-manipulation) project, which is coordinated by Jörg Seyfried of the University of Karlsruhe in Germany, will involve 10 European universities.
The bots will probably consist of a microchip with six or eight legs. They will get power from solar cells and communicate with their comrades via infrared or radio links. This should allow them to be sent into small or dangerous spaces to inspect equipment for signs of damage. A team of entomologists from the University of Graz in Austria will provide advice on ways to mimic insect communication.
The researchers hope to have prototypes capable of pushing small objects around by mid-2006.

From New Scientist print edition 26th Sept 2005

So are we thinking of warfare applications, or something?

I worked for a while with the nano-robotics lab at USC (University of Southern California (go Trojans!)). It seems that sabotage operations are a natural for nano-warfighters.