swarm

Agilox applies artificial swarm intelligence to its warehouse robots and makes ‘substantial’ cost savings

June 17, 2020 by Sam Francis Leave a Comment

Agilox says its autonomous mobile robots are “substantially saving costs” by applying artificial swarm intelligence.

Swarm Intelligence and bio-inspired computing have attracted great interest in almost every area of science and engineering, including robotics, over the last two decades.

Being an innovative manufacturer of autonomous mobile robots, Agilox directs most of its effort into developing one of the most unique robotic material handling features on the market – completely decentralized autonomy. [Read more…] about Agilox applies artificial swarm intelligence to its warehouse robots and makes ‘substantial’ cost savings

Swarm Theory: Lessons from nature in the advancement of robotics

April 22, 2020 by David Edwards Leave a Comment

By Rhys Davies, product manager at Canonical, publisher of the Ubuntu open source operating system

As part of a recent entry to Science Robotics, experts argued that “Covid-19 could be a catalyst for developing robotic systems that can be rapidly deployed with remote access […] to front lines”.

It is often in times of great strife that innovation truly comes to the fore – the progress made across both public and private sectors in recent weeks is a tribute to just that, encompassing everything from advanced data analytics to the production of ventilators by the likes of McLaren, Mercedes and other F1 teams.

Robotics is no different. Robots are currently handling room service in isolation centres, patrolling the streets to help countries achieve social distancing policies, and helping to entertain the elderly. [Read more…] about Swarm Theory: Lessons from nature in the advancement of robotics

Tiny swarm robots could become first responders after earthquakes

February 9, 2016 by Abdul Montaqim

It seems obvious now that in the event of an earthquake, tiny, swarm robots would be the most effective way of locating survivors in huge piles of rubble through which human emergency workers and first responders cannot make their way or even see.

So obvious that you wonder why they haven’t been developed and even deployed for that purpose already. Certainly the technology seems to be advanced enough – research into the area has been going at an accelerated pace for some time.

Looking at pictures of the collapsed building in Taiwan after the earthquake there on Saturday, there looks to be no way to go in for the emergency workers trying to rescue the survivors. The magnitude-7.6 quake is reported to have killed at least 41 people and more than 100 are said to be trapped in the rubble in that building alone. [Read more…] about Tiny swarm robots could become first responders after earthquakes