Thursday, March 11, 2010

Swarm Robotics by James McLurkin

May 5th, 2008 in Building Management, Reconfigurable, Swarm by miles

To create robots that can explore caves, landmines or even Mars, the robots must be plentiful and autonomous. The Swarm, a fleet of 100 robots, runs on the Swarm Operating System (SwarmOS), which is based on distributed algorithms that allow the input or commands to be divided among multiple recipients. This software is also scalable, so that the number of robots in the swarm can increase or decrease without affecting the work accomplishments of the group. While a centralized system is easier to program and control, it is not readily scalable and thus does not react well if one member of the group fails to perform during the task. Distributed algorithms also set the platform for local communications among the robots so each can work independently toward achieving one common goal.