The Robots Are Working Together

Anybody who watches “Ghost In The Shell” should be acquainted with the implications included with this story. A team of scientists from the Free University of Brussels, Belgium, the Institute of Cognitive Science and Technology in Italy and the Autonomous Systems Laboratory and Dalle Molle Institute for the Study of Artificial Intelligence have developed a system by which a team of robots can work together to achieve a common goal. Right now, those goals include gradually transporting a object lit with red LEDs over to a large white target and working together to map out a path from a red object and a blue target.

In the future, they hope to have the robots help each other perform tasks which one robot needs to perform. For instance, if one robot comes to a wall that he needs to pass, he’ll go back and get some buddies and they’ll figure out if they can climb it together or not. The current batch can adapt, though. They can change their direction on their own to make sure they’re headed in the right direction. Man, this is so cool. Tachikoma are going to be real soon.

Robot swarm works together to shift heavy objects [New Scientist Tech]