Patent Application: Swarming robots system

* 15:34 17 September 2007
* NewScientist.com news service
* Justin Mullins

Set a swarm of robots to explore and map a large area and you will soon find that controlling them all becomes an overwhelming task. It's simply not possible to control more than handful of robots effectively using a central-command-like structure, says James McLurkin, a computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, US.

Instead, he says, you are better off allowing the robots talk to each other and, after setting a primary goal such as mapping an area or following a leader, delegating control to them. Funded by the US Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, McLurkin has come up with just such a system.

His robots share data from their onboard optical, electromagnetic, and acoustic sensors with their swarm-mates, and frequently evaluate their ability to complete the task. McLurkin says the beauty of this design is that the number of robots involved can be dramatically increased without placing an overwhelming burden on any central-command structure.

Two videos show that the technique seems to work well in ideal environments for simple tasks such as follow the leader (mpeg format) and "clumping" into groups (mpeg format). The big question is, of course, how well these robots would cope with the real world.

Read the full swarming robots system patent application.