termites are what motivated this whole
project we learned about these termites
these centimeters long insects that
together build mounds that can be 40
feet or more tall and we said that’s
amazing that shows that these large
numbers of independent agents you know
all with limited sensing and then no
central control that they can together
build very large-scale complicated
structures that’s fantastic now how
would we do that how would we build and
program robots so that they build
according to these same kinds of
decentralized principles but together
produce particular things that we asked
them for this video is sped up five
times because the robots actually move
very slowly they’re capable of moving
faster but we have them moving very
deliberately now they’re being very
careful to get everything right sort of
measure twice cut once so here we’ve
sped up 15 times the robots are actually
moving at about two-and-a-half feet a
minute so the main window is showing
sort of a 3/4 view of the three robots
building the structure in the lower left
is an inset showing a top view of the
same thing so if you’re a human asking
these robots to build you something you
start by giving them something like a
picture of what you want you give them
basically a blueprint and a computer
takes that and annotates that with the
equivalent of traffic rules that gives
the robots guidelines on how they’re
allowed to move through the workspace
each one has its own brain it doesn’t
know what the other ones are doing
they’re not getting directions from any
any central command and they they also
each have all their own sensing they can
only tell what’s going on right around
themselves they’re working together in
the sense that they’re all working to
build the same structure but they’re
working independently each one is acting
on its own if you got rid of one of
these robots that wouldn’t affect what
the other two were doing if you got rid
of two of the robots the third one would
be able to keep going and finish the job
by itself the long-term vision of the
system like this is to do automated
construction and settings where humans
can’t easily do it so for instance if we
want to send astronauts to Mars it’s
very hard very dangerous and expensive
to send astronauts to build there it
would be ideal if we could send a team
of robots on ahead to build them a
habitat so that would be waiting for
them when they show up
of course that’s again a very long-term
vision something that might be shorter
term still on the order of years but
maybe not decades is to have a system
like this build levees out of sandbags
to protect against flooding classically
the times when you want to use robots
instead of people our situation is
described by the 3ds dirty dangerous and
dull and something like you know
building with sandbags and a flood zone
is is all of those things right now we
send in the National Guard so if we
could have robots do that for us you
know that can help us keep people out of
harm’s way again not these specific
robots not these exact algorithms but
you can imagine how systems like these
could be adapted to build walls out of
sandbags to protect against flooding
project we learned about these termites
these centimeters long insects that
together build mounds that can be 40
feet or more tall and we said that’s
amazing that shows that these large
numbers of independent agents you know
all with limited sensing and then no
central control that they can together
build very large-scale complicated
structures that’s fantastic now how
would we do that how would we build and
program robots so that they build
according to these same kinds of
decentralized principles but together
produce particular things that we asked
them for this video is sped up five
times because the robots actually move
very slowly they’re capable of moving
faster but we have them moving very
deliberately now they’re being very
careful to get everything right sort of
measure twice cut once so here we’ve
sped up 15 times the robots are actually
moving at about two-and-a-half feet a
minute so the main window is showing
sort of a 3/4 view of the three robots
building the structure in the lower left
is an inset showing a top view of the
same thing so if you’re a human asking
these robots to build you something you
start by giving them something like a
picture of what you want you give them
basically a blueprint and a computer
takes that and annotates that with the
equivalent of traffic rules that gives
the robots guidelines on how they’re
allowed to move through the workspace
each one has its own brain it doesn’t
know what the other ones are doing
they’re not getting directions from any
any central command and they they also
each have all their own sensing they can
only tell what’s going on right around
themselves they’re working together in
the sense that they’re all working to
build the same structure but they’re
working independently each one is acting
on its own if you got rid of one of
these robots that wouldn’t affect what
the other two were doing if you got rid
of two of the robots the third one would
be able to keep going and finish the job
by itself the long-term vision of the
system like this is to do automated
construction and settings where humans
can’t easily do it so for instance if we
want to send astronauts to Mars it’s
very hard very dangerous and expensive
to send astronauts to build there it
would be ideal if we could send a team
of robots on ahead to build them a
habitat so that would be waiting for
them when they show up
of course that’s again a very long-term
vision something that might be shorter
term still on the order of years but
maybe not decades is to have a system
like this build levees out of sandbags
to protect against flooding classically
the times when you want to use robots
instead of people our situation is
described by the 3ds dirty dangerous and
dull and something like you know
building with sandbags and a flood zone
is is all of those things right now we
send in the National Guard so if we
could have robots do that for us you
know that can help us keep people out of
harm’s way again not these specific
robots not these exact algorithms but
you can imagine how systems like these
could be adapted to build walls out of
sandbags to protect against flooding
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