Simple 'BOBbots' Swarm to Accomplish Complex Tasks

The "behaving, organizing, buzzing bots," or BOBbots, from Georgia Tech are simple but can still get big jobs done. Even with sensors, communication, memory, and computation removed, the robots' loose magnets and cylindrical chassis enable the formation compact swarms that can collectively clear debris that is too heavy for one alone to move. "While most people build increasingly complex and expensive robots to guarantee coordination, we wanted to see what complex tasks could be accomplished with very simple robots," said Prof. Daniel Goldman, a researcher on the project .