Thousands of robots can now work together: ‘Like ants’ – Volkskrant

By: Lisa van der Velden – 15/08/14, 20:49

© AFP. The Kilo Bots at work

People have one great advantage over robots: they can work together. Where robots can follow orders, precisely, they are not as strong mutual cooperation. Yet there seems to be changing.

Harvard University in the United States, researchers have built a swarm of identical robots in 1000, and then to give them. A group assignment For example, “Take all together the shape of a star in ‘. That task took them a little twelve hours, but the result was a neat formation. According to the researchers, this never worked before with many robots simultaneously.

In the experiment, each robot had a picture of the desired formation and they had to work together to achieve that form. The robots are cylindrical, have bendable legs and are about the size of a sushi roll. The researchers call them “Kilo Bots. They built exactly in 1024, the same figure as the number of bytes in a kilobyte.

“During the commands every KiloBot always look at the path that they have taken, and what the neighbor is doing,” said Michael Rubenstein, one of the authors of the published study. “On the basis of each robot makes its own decisions.”

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  © epa.

  Ants that work

• Same as watching paint that dries

Stronger together, like ants
Individual Kilo Bots have very limited options and they make mistakes, but the algorithm that controls their behavior makes them overcome these limitations. In that respect, the swarm of robots inspired by an ant colony, says Rubenstein. Ants can also take a variety of formations and structures, such as nesting and rafts, which have their limitations as zespotig individual no longer play.

According to another Harvard professor, we will increasingly see together. Large numbers of robots in the future Told the BBC she says, “For example, hundreds of robots that work together to clean up waste or millions of self-propelled vehicles that will soon populate our roads.” Figuring out how to introduce this new technology rapidly into a production says another scientist, would be a “game-changer” are.

Despite all the praise for the experiment, the scientists do make yourself a note to their swarming Kilo Bots. Exciting are not. Rubenstein: “Twelve hours view the experiment, as we had to do, is like watching paint dry.”