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Swarm of robots can make collective decisions by imitating bees

A group of small, simple robots can make a collective decision by exchanging infrared light signals in a process inspired by how bees decide where to build their nests

By Karmela Padavic-Callaghan

7 November 2023

Kilobots communicate by flashing red, green and blue lights

MC Miguel

A swarm of small, wiggling robots that communicate by flashing lights at each other can make collective decisions. This is similar to the process bees use to reach consensus on where to build their nest.

“We believe that in the near future there are going to be simple robots that will do jobs that we don’t want to do, and it will be very important that they make decisions in a decentralised, autonomous manner,” says Carmen Miguel at the University of…

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