Miscellaneous

[IEEE CSS Video Clip Contest 2014 Submission]
This video highlights the work on multi-agent robotics at the GRITSLab at the Georgia Institute of Technology. By drawing inspiration from the world around us, different ways of interacting with the robots are discussed, with control theory playing a key role for making the human-swarm interactions happen.

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[IEEE CSS Video Clip Contest 2014 Submission]
This video highlights the work on multi-agent robotics at the GRITSLab at the Georgia Institute of Technology. By drawing inspiration from the world around us, different ways of interacting with the robots are discussed, with control theory playing a key role for making the human-swarm interactions happen.

Click to expand...

When animals swarm they exhibit a complex collective intelligence that could help us build robots, heal wounds and understand the brain
Read more:

"Mind meld: The genius of swarm thinking"
When animals swarm they exhibit a complex collective intelligence that could help us build robots, heal wounds and understand the brain

January 29, 2014

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This video shows an example of wiring up a Robot Hive member to the swarm. Controlling servos and alpha numeric displays is shown, as is getting a button press event from the hive.

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"Spatially Targeted Communication and Self-Assembly," by Nithin Mathews, Anders Lyhne Christensen, Rehan O'Grady, and Marco Dorigo, from Universite Libre de Bruxelles and Instituto Universitario de Lisboa, was presented at IROS 2012 in Vilamoura, Portugal.

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ChIRP robots performing a simple box pushing task, inspired by foraging ants. The objective of the experiment is to have a swarm of robots collectively push a box without using any communication.
The box is emitting IR-light that the robots can detect and therefore distinguish the box from other obstacles. It is too heavy for a single robot to push alone, meaning that the robots need to cooperate in order to push it. Each robot only knows that other robots and a box may be present, but has no notion of where they can be situated in the environment. Moreover no direct communication is allowed between the robots. The robots have to search for the box, and at the same time avoid other robots and obstacles they may encounter.
If the box is detected, the robot starts pushing for a predefined time. This time depends on how many neighbouring robots are assumed to be pushing the box. If a robot detects that it cannot move the box, it tries to reposition to another side of the box. Multiple robots pushing on the same side are thus more inclined to continue pushing instead of reposition to another side, and this will eventually converge enough robots pushing on the same side of the box, resulting in a force sufficient to move the box.
chirp.idi.ntnu.no

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Abstract: The seminar presents an approach to the study of cognition in collective, swarm-like systems (referred to as the "swarm cognition" approach).
This approach has two main objectives: on the one hand, the theoretical understanding of the mechanisms that support cognitive processing and behavioural optimality in animal swarms; on the other hand, the definition of an engineering methodology that provides formal methods and tools for the design of cognitive capabilities in distributed multi-robot systems. These two objectives are deeply intertwined. The theoretical understanding will support the definition of a suitable engineering methodology for cognitive systems through the identification of the basic mechanisms used in cognitive processing, which must be translated into formal methods and guidelines for engineering artificial systems (e.g., the interactions observed between bees during nest site selection can be distilled into design patterns leading to an optimal decision making process). Similarly, the requirements for a suitable engineering methodology can support the identification of general mechanisms used in cognitive processes (e.g., the need to provide robustness to an engineered system could point to more detailed models which could be tested against the biological system). I will present the studies of biological systems that constitute the background of the swarm cognition approach, and discuss the work-in-progress for the definition of an engineering methodology for distributed cognitive systems.

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Watch as a throng of tiny, self-organizing machines—flashing lights on, speakers playing vintage video game music—search, cluster, and disperse with a single command. We owe much of this groundbreaking technology—known as "swarm robotics"—to visionary engineer James McLurkin, named one of the country's top five robot designers by Time magazine. His machines perform striking organizational and teamwork tasks in a method with origins in the behavior of ants and bees, and with real-world application and stakes: his swarm can clear minefields, execute complex missions on Mars, and search the aftermath of natural disasters for survivors. Learn more from McLurkin and witness his mechanical colony in action.

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Swarms have existed for millions of years in nature and now they’re evolving into silicon.

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These flatworms live off energy provided by the green algae they store in their tissues - allowing them to spend their lives sunbathing on sandy beaches

"Green worms create a superorganism that becomes a giant seaweed"
Zoologger is our weekly column highlighting extraordinary animals – and occasionally other organisms – from around the world

by Josh Gabbatiss
February 24, 2016

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Video captured off the coast of Panama shows a surprising underwater swarm of red crabs, spotted further south than ever before. Where are they headed?

Mysterious deep-sea swarm of thousands of crabs caught on camera

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Inexpensive and easy to use MAVs, developed by Severin Leven and Sensefly, are shown here to be able to flock in formations up to ten robots. The project, presented by Sabine Hauert from EPFL's Laboratory of Intelligent Systems, will be shown at the IROS 2011 annual meeting.

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Zooids: Building Blocks for Swarm User Interfaces
Mathieu Le Goc, Lawrence H Kim, Ali Parsaei, Jean-Daniel Fekete, Pierre Dragicevic, Sean Follmer

UIST 2016: Proceedings of the 29th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software & Technology

Abstract:
This paper introduces swarm user interfaces, a new class of human-computer interfaces comprised of many autonomous robots that handle both display and interaction. We describe the design of Zooids, an open-source open-hardware platform for developing tabletop swarm interfaces. The platform consists of a collection of custom-designed wheeled micro robots each 2.6 cm in diameter, a radio base-station, a high-speed DLP structured light projector for optical tracking, and a software framework for application development and control. \ We illustrate the potential of tabletop swarm user interfaces through a set of application scenarios developed with Zooids, and discuss general design considerations unique to swarm user interfaces.

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