Swarm Robotics n It's applications

Robotics:

you have definitely heard about the term robotics. It is the science that deals with the behavior of robots. There is another term i.e. SWARM ROBOTICS do you know what it is?? Some of you heard about it but many of you don’t know what is ‘SWARM ROBOTICS’? Well, no worry, I am here to tell you about it.

Swarm means ‘group’ that means swarm robotics is the science that deals with the behavior of ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­group of robots i.e. how they communicate with each other, how they work in a group etc.

Origin of swarm robotics is from the behavior of insects. They work together in the group to complete their task how they communicate with each other. Let us consider the group of ant. They work in the group to lift the weight which is too heavy to lift for one ant & reach to the destination. Ants use pheromone to communicate with each other. On the basis of this, swarm robotics come in to picture.

Let's watch this video you will know a little about the swarm robotics

Let's take a look how the robot swarm can help us in various areas:

1. Area of Medical science: Nano size particles (A swarm of robots) can be released in our body to warf-off the effect of diesease and aging, to fight the disease like cancer. This swarm will work on cell level and will cure the person.

2. Area of military:

    a. In military areas Micro Autonomous Systems and Technology (MAST) is working with the objective of provide each soldier with an insect-size robot for intelligence purpose.

    b. Each insect-like robot is its own being that obtains, processes, and shares data with other units in the swarm.

    c. British Government is now trying to create a swarm that can detect, identify, locate and report a range of military threats in an urban environment.

3. How this swarm will help us in House Cleaning:

Suppose we have two autonomous robots, A big one, let's suppose the same size as the vacuum cleaner, it will clean the floor of house & one another for cleaning the corners we can use a smaller say a "rat size" robot.

Future of swarm technology

1. The networks resembling a swarm could play a more important role for energy supply in future.

2. If in future, in a planned integrated network, more power supply is supplied from renewable energy sources such as water, wind and sun, then these gigantic networks can no longer be regulated from a control center.” We need to think of how the power supply can controls itself”, says Professor Martin Greiner from Siemens.

3. The professor’s vision is to distribute the intelligence within the power supply network in order to immediately pick up as many fluctuations as possible in the nodal points and not later in already overloaded control center. In this way BLACKOUTS can be prevented.

             Since the completion of the Swarm-bots project in 2005, no work has been done to actually apply swarm robotics algorithms in practical scenarios. It is a new concept which is at the initial stages of its development. It has been successfully employed in some areas as “Imagination meets Technology”. It is a common software architecture that serves as a universal link for the solutions of various problems.