Swarmbots are nothing new, but the Swarmanoid developed by Dr. Marco Dorigo is an amazing demonstration of robotic team work. Swarmanoid uses a group of different robots to accomplish their goals, but these robots are divided into classes each with their own special skills. Their heterogenius makeup and redundant nature means that Swarmanoid is designed to be better and more reliable than individual robots or homogenius swarms.
Let’s run through the cast: There’s the spy, eye-bot, which can hover and attach to ceilings. Using its cameras, eye-bot tracks down the target and sends the intelligence to the rest of the team. With this information, rolling foot-bots create a ground-based network based off eye-bot intelligence. To complete their task, two foot-bots team up with a hand-bot — the sticky-fingered acrobat of the team. Together, the foot-bots carry the hand-bot into position, which climbs and grapples to obtain their goal.
Their creators say that this super squad of robots has the potential to aid in search and rescue operations, or even exploring space. That said, they’re far more impressive to watch then to read about, which is probably why the won the 2011 AAAI Video Competition.
Read on below to see a video of the Swarmanoid in the heist of the century.
(via Engadget)
