Thousand-Robot Swarm Can Self-Assemble Into Shapes

Researchers at Harvard University have come up with a thousand-robot swarm that can self-assemble into different shapes. Each Kilobot is a small device that can move around by vibrating its legs. Communication with other robots happens using infrared transmitters and receivers. Since we are talking about a thousand robots, their collective behavior does not change if a few of them fail. But since that’s a large number, managing them becomes a more complex task.

The above video shows the ability to create and program a large-scale autonomous swarm of robots using limited individual robots. Now add a few more, and things will get real complicated.

[via IEEE]