Hive minds: How ‘swarm robots’ are learning from insects

Story highlights Scientists are building robots that can work in teams 'Swarm robots' operate like hive insects such as ants, termites or bees MIT's M-blocks robot can self-assemble to solve different problems Swarm robots could be used in search and rescue, medicine and space exploration CNN — In the dystopian future imagined within the popular Terminator franchise, robots learn to think, self-replicate and eventually kill their human masters. That’s important because it means the robot may not need any memory, and possibly not even a processing unit, so this technology could work for nanoscale robots – for example in medical applications.” Some of the most interesting applications for swarm robotics exist where robots go beyond the realm of easy human reach, say into space or under the sea, or – as Gross says – inside the human body to perform medical tasks at a microscopic or ‘nano’ scale. The big challenge is to ensure that swarm robotics technology will be used for the betterment of mankind Jan Carlo Barca, roboticist Aaron Becker, a postdoctoral researcher at Rice University has been working on an experiment to test different ways swarm robots can be deployed, with a view to seeing ‘nano-robots’ eventually used in medical operations. Jan Carlo Barca, a member of the Swarm Robotics Laboratory at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia says that there are plenty of worthy applications for swarm robots, but some scientists working in the field worry that their research may end up being used for military purposes: “Some potential application areas for swarms of robots are: cooperative search in disaster sites to support rescue efforts, pollution detection and monitoring, mine clearing, exploration, mapping and dynamic motion capture for the film industry,” he says.