Swarm of robots can make collective decisions by imitating bees

A swarm of small, wiggling robots that communicate by flashing lights at each other can make collective decisions. This is similar to the process bees use to reach consensus on where to build their nest.

“We believe that in the near future there are going to be simple robots that will do jobs that we don’t want to do, and it will be very important that they make decisions in a decentralised, autonomous manner,” says Carmen Miguel at the University of …