Can Swarm Robotics Help Construction?
Date Posted: February 28, 2024
Posted In: Discussion,
From Bluebeam Blog: Picture the scene. When their underground home is threatened by a life-threatening flood, tens of thousands of ants gather together and clamber on top of each other, creating a seething, ascending column, up which their kin climb to safety.
This scenario is from the 1998 animated movie “Antz,” but it reflects the sort of cooperative and collective behavior that takes place in the natural world among colonies of ants, bees and termites—behavior that serves each species well.
Engineers and technologists have observed swarm activity, wishing to replicate for the benefit of humanity that which serves the animal kingdom so well.
Among other things, such research has led to the development of miniature, near-autonomous robots that work together, but also independently, and with minimal need for input from a centrally located operator. This is called swarm robotics.
Collaboration toward a common goal
Roboticists are working to create teams of tiny robots that can monitor equipment and construction schemes in hostile environments; some have even suggested such robots can build structures where human beings cannot, such as in space.
Researchers at the Boston-based Wyss Institute in the US are developing robotic systems and algorithmic approaches “to make artificial swarms of robots that collaboratively work together toward a common goal.”
Wyss technicians have created a collective of 1,024 such robots, which they say can be programed to exhibit complex swarming behaviors, such as foraging, and what the team describes as “firefly-inspired synchronization,” while a user can interact with the swarm as a whole, effectively programming the robots and switching them on and off, regardless how many robots there are.