The Approach of Robot Swarms

t sounds like classic sci-fi: Robots, linked by a common network, roam the land. When one unit discovers something, they all know it instantly. They use artificial intelligence to carry out their mission.

Soon, such marching orders will be real, carried out by robot groups known as "swarms" or "hives."...

Robotmakers find inspiration for their programs in nature: the behavior of bee, ant, and wasp colonies, as well as of flocks of birds and schools of fish. Ants, for example, communicate by leaving pheromone trails that other ants can follow to food. Ants also work as teams to distribute their workload, such as finding the most efficient paths for foraging or deciding who will haul bits of leaves back to the nest, without needing any directions from a leader...

The development of "true swarms," thousands or tens of thousands of mobile robots working together, is many years off and "depends on some things that haven't been invented yet," Greiner says, including miniaturization of components and better power sources and sensors...

Read more in this article from csmonitor.com.