What Are Swarm-Bots?
from the everybody-work-together-now dept
Roland Piquepaille writes "Swarm bots are a project funded by the Future and Emerging Technologies program of the European Community which focuses on the design and the implementation of self-organizing and self-assembling biologically-inspired robots. "A swarm-bot is an aggregate of s-bots (mobile robots able to self-assemble by connecting/disconnecting from each other) that can explore, navigate and transport heavy objects on rough terrains in situations in which a single s-bot would have major problems to achieve the task alone." In this column I wrote, you'll see pictures of a single s-bot and of a swarm-bot made of several assembled s-bots passing a fosse. Impressive! These researchers think that potential applications of swarm-bots include space or underwater exploration. "
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Terrorist Swarms
Because of the physical phenomenon of resonance, soldiers marching in step cause the ground to shake. Soldiers traditionally break step when crossing bridges to avoid collapse. A crowd that rushes for an entrance at the same time can exert so much resonant force that the people in the front can get pancaked.
If you have a bunch of swarming thumpers, could you make them thump on a structural vulnerability to make structures come down? Or manipulate a crowd to implode on itself like a crushed watermelon.
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