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Swarm Robots Get Smarter With Academic Research

Multiple drones or mobile robots acting in concert are opening up new applications for automation, covering larger areas, delivering more useful sensor data, and interacting with their environments in new ways. In the U.S., the military has been a leader in developing swarm robots, but academia also plays a significant role.

One of the key differences is that many swarm robotics developments within academia have been around the software “back end.” The U.S. military, on the other hand, has worked on both algorithms and hardware.

For instance, Georgia Tech has developed algorithms to power swarm robots. One of them is focused on ensuring that such devices can find a balance between safety and performance. Small autonomous robots used it to move and “switching places” without bumping into each other or creating blocks. Researchers also saw that even if one robot acted “wild,” the rest of the pack would adapt and change their movements accordingly.

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