New Artificial Organism with Advanced Group Intelligence:
A Swarm of 10,000 Miniature Robots

Remember Michael Crichton’s science-fiction novel, “Prey”?
Well, researchers at the University of York are investigating
large swarms of up to 10,000 miniature robots which can work
together to form a single, artificial life form. The multi-robot
approach to artificial intelligence is a relatively new one, and
has developed from studies of the swarm behavior of social
insects such as ants.

Swarm robotics is a field of study based on the supposition that
simple, individual robots can interact and collaborate to form a
single artificial organism with more advanced group intelligence.

As a part of an international collaboration dubbed the “Symbiotic
Evolutionary Robot Organisms” project, or “Symbrion” for short,
researchers are developing an artificial immune system which
can protect both the individual robots that form part of a swarm,
as well as the larger, collective organism.

The aim of the project is to develop the novel principles behind
the ways in which robots can evolve and work together in large
’swarms’ so that - eventually - these can be applied to real-world applications. The swarms of robots are capable of forming
themselves into a ’symbiotic artificial organism’ and collectively
interacting with the physical world using sensors.

Full article here:

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/03/swarm-robotics.html