The Power of Robot Swarms: How a Group Mind Can Help Solve Complex Problems

Roboticists at the University of Maryland are taking inspiration from the swarm intelligence of self-organized biological systems, such as colonies of ants or bees, to create robot swarms that can work together to solve complex problems. In a recent study, they wirelessly connected hundreds of Kilobots, a simple robotic platform, to create a single computational entity known as an artificial group mind. The swarm was trained to connect, communicate, and share data to collectively figure out how to respond to its environment.

The algorithm used to train the Kilobot swarm was modified to be successfully applied across a distributed swarm of many robots connected by a wireless network. The researchers programmed neurons within the network to wait for neighbors who had fallen behind to catch back up to where they should be, making the swarm learn more efficiently and strengthening the group mind over time.

The group mind can be trained to recognize different images and respond accordingly. For example, if the group mind recognizes a peace symbol, it responds by creating a smiley face, and if it recognizes a biohazard symbol, it creates a frowny face instead.

This type of research has particular value in deploying robot swarms in the face of a challenge unknown, such as a search-and-rescue mission after a catastrophic natural disaster. By pooling their physical and computational resources, robot swarms can solve common problems collectively.

Overall, this research highlights the potential power of robot swarms and how they can work together to achieve goals that would be impossible for a single robot to accomplish alone.