Swarm-bots attack

Robotics


This video shows swarm bots attacking pulling a child across the floor. The look on the kids face at 2:37 is classic. All joking aside, this is an amazing demonstration of the advantages of many small robots working together to accomplish a task.

The goal of this project is the study of a novel design approach to hardware implementation for testing and using the capability of self-assembling, self-organising, and metamorphosis of robotic systems. Such an approach finds its theoretical roots on recent studies in swarm intelligence, i.e., in studies of self-organising and self-assembling capabilities shown by social animals.

More information about the Swarm-bots

12 thoughts on “Swarm-bots attack

  1. n3rd says:

    someone needs to watch sci-fi a little more. i get eery replicator-terminator-matrix-esque feelings when I think of masses of robots that are working together and being built so they can build themselves.

    the apocalypse is coming!

  2. Dustbuster7000 says:

    Note the reassuring hand on the child’s in the early stages of the video. You can just imagine: “Ok Susie, now you just lie here and the robots will come over and grab you in a big swarm and pull you over to the other side” and the kid is thinking “Mechanical bees are coming to drag me away!”

    From a technical standpoint though, very cool, the design with the robot signaling via lighting that its joined a given group and is ready to pull is a nice touch too.

  3. justDIY says:

    Why do the robots move so slowly? Is it a limitation of the calculating speed of their tiny embedded processors, or because their mechanical parts can’t cope with the increased momentum higher speed would bring?

    1. Marc de Vinck says:

      @justDIY

      Most likely because if they went any faster the kid would have freaked out! ;)

  4. Khendar says:

    Surely there’s a less traumatising way to demonstrate this functionality ?

  5. John Keenan says:

    Full of ossum-ness

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