Swarming behavior : Birds, fish, bats, bacteria, krill and ants and bees; in fact a number of insects... all exhibit swarming behavior. We know that with some simple rules of traffic control, we can now create swarming robots and even model artificial swarms (computer generated). Why is this interesting? They have incredible applications.. from medical applications to robotics to settling a human colony on Mars...

Article Extract: Inspired by the termites' resilience and collective intelligence, a team of computer scientists and engineers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University has created an autonomous robotic construction crew. The system needs no supervisor, no eye in the sky, and no communication: just simple robots—any number of robots—that cooperate by modifying their environment. The TERMES robots can build towers, castles, and pyramids out of foam bricks, autonomously building themselves staircases to reach the higher levels and adding bricks wherever they are needed. In the future, similar robots could lay sandbags in advance of a flood, or perform simple construction tasks on Mars.

Evolutionary Models : In order to gain insight into why animals evolve swarming behaviour, scientists have turned to evolutionary models that simulate populations of evolving animals. Typically these studies use a genetic algorithm to simulate evolution over many generations in the model. These studies have investigated a number of hypotheses explaining why animals evolve swarming behaviour, such as the selfish herd theory, the predator confusion effect, and the dilution effect.

Medical Applications : Researchers are investigating SDS, a swarm intelligence algorithm, through a social metaphor and presented some of its possible applications. The applicability of the SDS algorithm in identifying areas of metastasis are discussed and the potential of deploying SDS in developing programmes for teaching and training medical students and junior doctors is also considered. Possible areas for future research in using SDS with swarming robots are also being explored.

Article Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_behaviour

Nature Link: http://www.nature.com/news/termite-inspired-robots-build-castles-1.14713

Harvard Link: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-02/hu-rcc021114.php

ISea Link: http://isea2011.sabanciuniv.edu/paper/swarming-robots-and-possible-medical-applications

Natgeo Link: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/02/140213-robots-building-blocks-termites-swarm-science-technology/

Wikipedia Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_behaviour

Pics courtesy: Popsci (computer generated swarm) http://goo.gl/sUs9b7, Gizmodo (Robotic swarm) http://goo.gl/HZ1r9h, Giphy (swarming fish) http://goo.gl/eKiy2Z, Bird swarm (Wikipedia link).

#swarm #science #robotics #nature