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Researchers Reference Flocking Birds to Improve Swarmbots

Posted by ryuzaki0 on 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."

8 of 62 comments (clear)

  1. Boids by Joaz+Banbeck · · Score: 5, Informative

    Craig Reynolds was doing this many years ago: http://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids/

    1. Re:Boids by TheBrakShow · · 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.

  2. Modelled after birds? by Malevolent+Tester · · Score: 5, Funny

    Researching bird flight and it's applications: £2m
    Developing autonomous swarming robots: £5m
    Watching your prototype robots fly straight into the nearest window at high speed and die: Priceless

    --
    If you haven't made a developer cry, you've wasted a day.
  3. Odd to dismiss it so early by StaticEngine · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Perhaps the OP could consider that not all robots are human killing machines, and this kind of swarming/flocking behavior could be applied to something like vehicular safety. I've often pondered the idea of lateral lines on fish, and how quickly a school of fish can become aware of the motions of surrounding fish and other obstacles, remaining in formation but moving as seemingly one unit. How great would it be if robotic cars could react thousands of times faster than a human, and in concert, to flow seamlessly around a tire blowout, or debris that fell off a truck onto the highway? Aren't these kinds of goals the very reason we do this kind of research, and isn't the application of this reserach to improve our quality of life the very thing that pushes mankind forward intellectually?

  4. FA Just Another Dreamy Blog by foxylad · · Score: 3, Informative

    I was intrigued about what the actual algorithm used by the starlings was, but the referenced article didn't elucidate. Eventually I found a link to http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/01/29/scistarling129.xml hidden at the bottom - it has a little more detail. Enjoy!

    --
    Do as you would be done to.
  5. Tag by TurinPT · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Stop using whatcouldpossiblygowrong for crying out loud, it completely defeats the purpose of having tags if all the articles have the same tags.

    1. Re:Tag by gardyloo · · Score: 3, Funny

      Perhaps something has gone wrong with the tagging system.

  6. Re:MOD PARENT UP by Bazzargh · · Score: 4, Informative

    Modelling bird swarming behaviour isn't new. ...getting it right is. If you rtfa, and Craig Reynolds work, you'd know that the boids simulation assumed that birds interacted with all nearest neighbours within a certain distance. The paper this article refers to proves by observing starling flocks that that isn't true - in fact the starlings interacted with the nearest 6 or 7 independent of the distance apart the birds were.