Another one for the Digital Life category. This one caught my yesterday evening - Harvard researchers receiving a $10 million grant to create a swarm of flying robotic bees, inevitably dubbed RoboBees.Thanks to Network World, which reports that the initiative is intended to lead to tiny smart sensors, low-power breakthroughs, better understanding of the bee world.
It writes:
The 5-year, National Science Foundation-funded RoboBee project could lead to a better understanding of how to artificially mimic the unique collective behaviour and intelligence of a bee colony; foster novel methods for designing and building an electronic surrogate nervous system able to deftly sense and adapt to changing environments; and advance work on the construction of small-scale flying mechanical devices, according to the Harvard RoboBee Web site.
If you check out that robobees.seas.harvard.edu website you can see more details on the research and the people behind it.
If you check out that robobees.seas.harvard.edu website you can see more details on the research and the people behind it.
"INSPIRED by the biology of a bee and the insect's hive behaviour ...There's also a blog - RoboBees: A Convergence of Body, Brain, and Colony - if you are interested in following the project.
we aim to push advances in miniature robotics and the design of compact high-energy power sources; spur innovations in ultra-low-power computing and electronic "smart" sensors; and refine coordination algorithms to manage multiple, independent machines. BTW, our robobees don't sting...," declares the website.
