Researchers Reference Flocking Birds to Improve Swarmbots

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Wednesday January 30, 2008 @11:26AM from the shine-your-shoes-while-composing-a-song dept.

inghamb87 writes "Scientists have studied flocks of starlings and cracked the mystery behind the birds' ability to fly in large formations, and regroup quickly after attacks, without getting confused and ramming into each other. While the information is cool, some scientists seem to think that the best use of this knowledge is not to aid our appreciation of nature, but to make more effective robot swarms. We've talked about swarming robots many times before, but usually researchers look to insects for inspiration."

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Re:Boids by TheBrakShow · 2008-01-30 12:53 · Score: 4, Interesting

Perhaps most relevant to this article is this particular simulation made last year which actually demonstrates flocking birds.

http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~paul/publications/boids/index.html

You can even play with the settings panel on the right side and set off "gunshots."

But yeah, this stuff is far from news.