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| Image courtesy www.wpafb.af.mil |
Insects provide a great model for robust cooperative exploration. With swarms of relatively inexpensive microrobots, reliability is increased since the loss of one or more need not affect the others. Processing power can be distributed across the swarm. Still huge compared to smart dust, but a step in that direction!
"Dr. Robert Wood of Harvard University is leading the way in what could become the next phase of high-performance micro air vehicles for the Air Force.
His basic research is on track to evolve into robotic, insect-scale devices for monitoring and exploration of hazardous environments, such as collapsed structures, caves and chemical spills."
I just read a book over the summer (Prey by Michael Crichton) that had a swarm kind of similar to this, and the distributed processing, communication evolved constantly. Initially powered by solar, it was able to adapted to recharge during the night as well as replicate and spawn off new swarms that eventually could mimic humans, oh yea, and evil too. Freaky.
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