TEAMS of mindless robots can achieve complex tasks without communicating with
each other, say robotics experts in Canada, who were inspired by ants’
behaviour. Armies of such cheap, expendable robots might one day help build a
base on Mars—or simply mow your lawn.
Non-communicative behaviour in ants is observed when they combine their
efforts to carry large pieces of food, such as leaves, says Ronald Kube, a
robotics expert at the Edmonton Research Park in Alberta. He says he has now
mimicked the same sort of distributed intelligence in a gang of worker
robots.
If you watch a particular…
