Robot Swarm Shifts Heavy Objects

holy_calamity writes "A swarm of robots has been demonstrated that can get together to transport an object too heavy for a single bot. Each robot is loaded with the same simple set of behaviors but more complex intelligence emerges from a group interacting. Two videos show the robots in action, and using a more complex behavior necessary when they're set to short sighted mode and can't see the target location from the starting point."

Comments

Re:Wasting time w/Humanoids?

[Atmchicago]

A few misconceptions to clear up:

1. The robots are not bipedal
2. The scientists are from Belgium, Italy, and Switzerland

Re:hmmmmm might need modification

[MankyD]

So, once its carrying your cargo along the path and begins to slide down a slope all the tracks will turn in unison to help carry it down the hill to its doom. They won't think anything is wrong because everyone will be pulling in the same direction.

I'm assuming maybe this was more of a humorous comment, but I'll take the bait. It would be trivial (I would think) to add a pitch sensor of some sort, then do a little bit of simply physics/trig to adjust the force calculations.