I was simply awed by the sheer intelligence and simplicity
when I read about Kilobots. The marvellous, small few centimetres in diameter
robots, standing on three pin legs, powered by coin batteries were developed in
the laboratory of Professor Radhika Nagpal and Fred Kavali of Harvard School of
Engineering and Applied Sciences. A kilo or a swarm of 1024 autonomous robots assemble
into two-dimensional pattern formation upon instructions without human
intervention. An initial set of instructions are beamed to the robots via
infrared following which the robots would work autonomously. Four robots mark
out origin of a coordinate system and the remaining will receive a 2-D image
they have to mimic. Using primitive behaviour, robots follow the edge of the
group, track the distance and maintain a sense of relative position. They take
turns in moving towards an acceptable position and assemble into the pre-directed
shape. Kilobots communicate with its neighbour through and in built infrared
transmitter. They have no sense about their broader outer environment. They can
locate the position of their neighbours and their point of origin and are capable
of assembling into a shape by gauging the position of its neighbour.
Kilobots are very simple in design and their abilities are variable
and less reliable. They are basically designed to carry out collective tasks. Just
as trillions of cells that constitute a complex organism communicate with each
other and carry out complex tasks. These robots demonstrate how complexity can arise
from simple behaviours performed enmasse.
The team basically drew inspiration from biological systems
where individuals assemble to carry out tasks. An army of ants by relaying
information among themselves construct bridges and rafts to cross difficult
terrains. Similarly social amoebae cooperate with each other especially when
food is scarce to form a huge fruiting body and escape the harsh external
environment. Even the individual cells of cuttlefish change colours to blend
into its surroundings. Nagpal has earlier developed a swarm of robots TERMEs inspired
by termites but its algorthim for self-assembly wasn’t demonstrated. Kilobots
were inspired by the collective functioning of a colony of ants. Till date
robot swarms of around 100 were constructed. Kilobots are thus a unique
creation wherein coordinated action of tiny 1024 robots is demonstrated.
To cut down the cost of constructing kilobots, certain
tradeoffs are made. It has a simple design and moves with two vibrating motors
which allows it to slide across a surface on its rigid legs. They have built in
infrared receiver and transmitter to communicate with neighbouring robots. It
is myopic and has no access to birds-eye view. It can’t move in a straight line
as a result its abilities are more variable and less reliable. But the strength
of the swarm overcomes individual weaknesses. With the smart algorithms it can
overcome its limitations and can complete human-specified tasks of assembling
into a particular shape with precision. These robots are capable of correcting
mistakes. If they sense traffic jam, robots moves off the course, nearby robots
sense the problem and cooperate to fix it.
Kilobots functioning can be represented as a milestone for
the computer scientists in the development of collective Artificial
Intelligence (AI). The development of kilobots is exemplary due to inherent
difficulties of algorithmic limitations on coordinating large numbers and the
cost of the labour involved in fabricating such tiny devices. Kilobots are test
bed for Artificial intelligence and are manipulated to carry out collective
tasks. Increasingly, robots are now required in coordinated tasks like environmental
clean-up or disaster relief and for self-driving on highways. The potential for
such swarms is huge in construction, agriculture, mining and medicine.
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