.. repost .. my apology, just noticed i had put one article inside the other back when .. robots don't, yet, give birth directly do they? ..
John Elder - Date March 31, 2013
Dr Jan Carlo Barca, of the Monash Swarm Robotics Laboratory, at work among his robots. Right now he is teaching a platoon of eight robots to talk to one another. Photo: Joe Armao
The idea of robots swarming through the air like bees sounds almost apocalyptic, and has certainly been given a frantic and violent workout by Hollywood.
But Dr Jan Carlo Barca, a founding member of the new Monash Swarm Robotics Laboratory, sees only the good.
''My idea was that one could use such a tool for saving lives and in industry,'' he says.
At the moment, he is working with a platoon of eight robots, teaching them to talk to one another, with a view to eventually having them work together as a prototype search and rescue team.
It's early days, but the plan is to develop swarm robotics to be used in the search for natural resources, exploration, the mapping of unknown environments, border patrol, surveillance and construction.
Swarm robotics is an emerging technology that makes use of principles observed in biological systems, such as insect colonies, flocks of birds, schools of fish, and even bacteria colonies, to co-ordinate the behaviour of groups of robots. That's the theory.
In the United States, work is being carried out to co-ordinate swarms of military drones.
And the University of Pennsylvania has had some success in flying eight to 10 small quadcopters.
Much of the work overseas uses motion-capture systems, which means placing cameras in the area into which you are sending your robots.
"The drawback with this approach is that it is not viable to place cameras in environments that pose a danger to human life, such as in disaster sites," says Dr Barca.
Another problem with this is the reliance on GPS guidance systems, which have limited use when robots are being sent into collapsed buildings, smoke-filled environments and when there is heavy cloud cover. While out for a stroll one evening, Dr Barca began thinking of using wireless technology to develop a tool that would allow squads of robots - moving across the ground and through the air - to communicate with one another, and co-ordinate their progress, under the supervision of a single person operating from somewhere remote.
In 2007, he put together a proposal for a research project.
Two years later, Monash University provided him access to the Wireless Sensors and Robot Networks (WSRN) Laboratory, of which he is now co-director.
The newly established Swarm Robotics Laboratory is administered by the faculty of information technology.
Monash is funding the equipment and providing scholarships to Dr Barca's students.
Dr Barca, who previously worked with sensor systems and 3D modelling in the faculty, believes that over the next 20 years swarm robotics will evolve in such a way that humans will be able "feel present" at a remote area through robots.
They may even experience a phenomenon he calls ''multi-presence''.
This is where a human operator can be said to ''feel'' present at several places simultaneously.
He says: ''This would radically change the way we can interact with the world and potentially increase the efficiency of human beings, not only by making several robots look out for a human's interest, but also by enabling the combined human robot team to make use of both human and machine intelligence to accomplish tasks.''
Swarming Robots: Nanobot Miniature Drones Could Advance Micromedicine [VIDEO]
Swarming robot nanotechnology could lead to the development of swarms of nanobots- miniature drones that attack pathogens in the human body with microscopic precision.
By Ashik Siddique | Mar 29, 2013 12:13 AM EDT
Research on swarming robots may lead to the use of tiny nanobots for micro-medicine - swarms of miniature drones that could attack harmful pathogens in the human body with microscopic precision.
(Photo : University of Sheffield) Swarming robots could lead to breakthroughs in micro-medicine, with miniature drones made of nanobots that swarm around disease sites in the human body.
The Sheffield Centre for Robotics .. http://www.shef.ac.uk/faculty/engineering/ .. in the United Kingdom has pioneered a system of 40 small robots that move independently, but can be programmed to swarm together when given specific commands or encountering specific stimuli.
"We are developing Artificial Intelligence to control robots in a variety of ways," said Dr. Roderich Gross, head of the University of Sheffield's Natural Robotics Lab, in a news release. "The key is to work out what is the minimum amount of information needed by the robot to accomplish its task.
"That's important because it means the robot may not need any memory, and possibly not even a processing unit, so this technology could work for nanoscale robots, for example in medical applications."
Each unit of the robot swarm is programmed to sense the presence of another robot around it. The researchers aimed to keep the necessary coding as simple as possible: "if the robots are being asked to group together, each robot only needs to be able to work out if there is another robot in front of it. If there is, it turns on the spot; if there isn't, it moves in a wider circle until it finds one."
As a result, the swarming robots can quickly bounce into formation after being scattered around an open space. A basic hierarchy determines how they cluster together.
When working in concert, the swarming robots can fetch things on command, or push objects across a surface. The researchers imagine them being put to use as "servants of the future" in a wide variety of capacities, from cleaning houses to conducting search and rescue operations in conditions too dangerous for humans.
Dr. Roderich Gross has spearheaded the development of a system of 40 swarming robots that can manipulate objects across smooth surfaces. [Credit: University of Sheffield]
Gross imagines a future where swarms of miniature drones, or nanobots, can provide non-invasive treatment for human diseases. Instead of invasive surgeries or chemotherapies, which can lead to risky complications or debilitating side effects, microscopic nanobots could swarm to the source of cancerous tumors and release medicine, or break down deposits in blocked arteries.
Swarming robot research has been informed by observations of the animal kingdom .. http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-03/15/robot-swarms . Biologists have observed swarming behavior in many animal species, from ants to geese, and mathematical modeling of their movement patterns has helped computer scientists figure out how to program robot swarms.
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