Can A Thousand Tiny Swarming Robots Outsmart Nature? | Deep Look

How does a group of animals -- or cells, for that matter -- work together when no one’s in charge? Tiny swarming robots--called Kilobots--work together to tackle tasks in the lab, but what can they teach us about the natural world?

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About Kilobots

How do you simultaneously control a thousand robots in a swarm? The question may seem like science fiction, but it’s one that has challenged real robotics engineers for decades.

In 2010, the Kilobot entered the scene. Now, engineers are programming these tiny independent robots to cooperate on group tasks. This research could one day lead to robots that can assemble themselves into machines, or provide insights into how swarming behaviors emerge in nature.

In the future, this kind of research might lead to collaborative robots that could self-assemble into a composite structure. This larger robot could work in dangerous or contaminated areas, like cleaning up oil spills or conducting search-and-rescue activities.

What is Emergent Behavior?

The universe tends towards chaos, but sometimes patterns emerge, like a flock of birds in flight. Like termites building skyscrapers out of mud, or fish schooling to avoid predators.

It’s called emergent behavior. Complex behaviors that arise from interactions between simple things. And you don’t just see it in nature.

What’s so interesting about kilobots is that individually, they’re pretty dumb.

They’re designed to be simple. A single kilobot can do maybe... three things: Respond to light. Measure a distance, sense the presence of other kilobots.

But these are swarm robots. They work together.

How do Kilobots work?

Kilobots were designed by Michael Rubenstein, a research scientist in the Self Organizing Systems Research Group at Harvard. Each robot consists of about $15 worth of parts: a microprocessor that is about as smart as a calculator, sensors for visible and infrared light, and two tiny cell-phone vibration units that allow it to move across a table. They are powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery, like those found in small electronics or watches.

The kilobots are programed all at once, as a group, using infrared light. Each kilobot gets the same set of instructions as the next. With just a few lines of programming, the kilobots, together, can act out complex natural processes.

The same kinds of simple instructions that kilobots use to self-assemble into shapes can make them mimic natural swarming behaviors, too. For example, kilobots can sync their flashing lights like a swarm of fireflies, differentiate similar to cells in an embryo and follow a scent trail like foraging ants.

Read the article for this video on KQED Science:
https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/07/21/can-a-thousand-tiny-swarming-robots-outsmart-nature


More great DEEP LOOK episodes:

Where Are the Ants Carrying All Those Leaves?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6oKJ5FGk24

What Happens When You Put a Hummingbird in a Wind Tunnel?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyqY64ovjfY

Pygmy Seahorses: Masters of Camouflage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3CtGoqz3ww

Related videos from the PBS Digital Studios Network!

Is Ultron Inevitable? | It’s Okay to Be Smart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Irmtk5QG8s

A History Of Robots | The Good Stuff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK-h4oATYSI

When Will We Worry About the Well-Being of Robots? | Idea Channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLieeAUQWMs


Funding for Deep Look is provided in part by PBS Digital Studios and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Deep Look is a project of KQED Science, which is supported by HopeLab, The David B. Gold Foundation; S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation; The Dirk and Charlene Kabcenell Foundation; The Vadasz Family Foundation; Smart Family Foundation and the members of KQED.

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Closed Caption:

The universe tends towards chaos, but sometimes
patterns emerge,
like a flock of birds in flight.
But how? How does a group of animals -- or
cells, for that matter -- work together in
an organized way when no one’s in charge?
Like termites building skyscrapers out of mud
or fish schooling to avoid predators.
It’s called emergent behavior. Order emerging
from chaos.
And you don’t just see it in nature.
Enter the kilobot… a robot the size of a
quarter, developed by engineers at Harvard.
What’s so interesting about kilobots is
that individually, they’re pretty dumb.
They’re designed to be simple. A single
kilobot can do maybe... three things:
Respond to light. Measure a distance. Sense the presence of other robots.
But these are swarm robots.
They work together.
The kilobots can organize themselves into
shapes, sort of like how cells form into an
organ in your body.
Here’s how it works.
The kilobots are programed all at once, as
a group, using infrared light.
Each kilobot gets the same set of instructions
as the next.
With just a few lines of programming, the
kilobots, together, can act out complex natural
processes.
For example:
How do a group of identical cells in an embryo
develop into different parts of the body?
In nature, this is a fairly mysterious process.
But with kilobots, you can recreate it.
See, here, how the kilobots start off blue…
then start randomly blinking either red or
green?
Their instructions are really simple: respond
to your neighbors, match their color.
But just with that simple programming they
begin to differentiate themselves into red
and green sections of the group... a lot like cells differentiating themselves in
an embryo.
Or here, they’re dispersing, based on the
way gas bubbles spread out to fill a volume
Here… a swarm of fireflies that start off
blinking randomly and eventually begin to
flash in unison.
These kilobots are mimicking the way bacteria
find food.
That light represents food.
See how they’re rotating and inching forward,
slowly homing in?
Programmers figured out how to make the kilobots
do this by watching bacteria search for food
in a petri dish
But here’s the thing:
The researchers were then able to make a better
program.
They revised the software, they came up with
a new more efficient way of solving the problem.
And that opens up a really tantalizing possibility…
Because our cells can be programmed too.
With the right tools, you can actually go
in and alter a cell’s genetic code,
its software.
With the right code maybe you could, for example,
teach white blood cells to track down and
bacteria or kill cancer cells more efficiently.
One day, instead of us teaching kilobots to
mimic nature, they might teach us better ways
of doing things.
And then… take over the world and destroy
us all.
Just kidding!