Pest Management Professional, June 2014
believe it or not TERMITES Termites inspire group think in new robots Harvard University turned to the insect world to help develop robots of all things Researchers designed a crew of tiny robots capable of building complicated structures without using blueprints or other assistance Computer scientists and robotics researchers are turning to what they call the swarm behavior of termites to explore new ways of enabling large groups of simple robots or flying drones with a common goal to collaborate Scientists programmed the cutting edge robots using termite colony behavior as a springboard Without deductive intelligence or a central plan termite swarms of millions routinely construct mounds as tall as 42 feet The termites act individually taking cues from their environment and each other Similarly the new bio inspired robots can build structures with foam bricks Source Wall Street Journal 66 June 2014 Pest Management Professional www mypmp net Photo courtesy of and copyrighted by Gene White pmimages@ earthlink net
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