Swarm Intelligence is contributing to improve our robotics systems, creating new ways to help humans in high risk operations.

Many researchers are currently working on this kind of robotic swarm.

Can robots behaviour based on swarm intelligence principles replace the humans in high risk missions? Or help him in rescue actions?

Within 2 years Vijay Kumar, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, hopes to put a networked team of robotic vehicles in the emergency and rescue field.

He is deeply convinced that one important purpose could be as first responders to a 911 call for a fire alarm.

Group of robots could respond, to tell us what’s happening before to send a firemen into a burning building.

Taking this idea one step further, Marco Dorigo‘s group in Brussels is leading a European effort to create a “swarmanoid,” a group of cooperating robots with complementary abilities: “foot-bots” to transport things on the ground, “hand-bots” to climb walls and manipulate objects, and “eye-bots” to fly around, providing information to the other units.”

Robert Full  takes a look at the incredible body of the cockroach to show how robots can learn to stabilize on rough terrain, walk upside down, do gymnastic maneuvers in air and run into walls without harming themselves.

Termite-Inspired Bots Ditch Advance Plans for Local Cues

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