Engineers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have developed robots that mimic the behavior of termites. And here I thought termites were just a nuisance. Their calling their new system TERM
Engineers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have developed robots that mimic the behavior of termites. And here I thought termites were just a nuisance. Their calling their new system TERMES. And like little termite construction workers, the system requires no blueprints or detailed instructions, no crew boss, and no centralized communications director. These autonomous mechanical crew members take cues from each other to know where to place materials. The way the termites use the information around them is a process called stigmergy, which engineers simulated through algorithms for the robots. And what’s the long-term vision for TERMES? Possibly one day constructing structures on Mars.