RI-Small: Autonomous Microrobotic Swarms

在自然界中，群居昆虫展示了如何戏剧性地利用移动性和多样性：小蚂蚁有效地觅食大片区域，而微小的白蚁建造的结构是它们自身大小的100万倍。然而，设计一个类似复杂性的机器人群体仍然是一个巨大的挑战；我们缺乏对如何有效实施和利用群体行为的基本理解。在这项研究中，我们将设计和实现一个可编程的微型机器人群，能够在复杂的环境中实现强大的集体智能。我们的项目将专注于移动性和多样性：我们试图了解缩小代理规模和扩大群体规模如何影响集体联网系统的能力。我们的工作有两条主线：1)开发具有生物衍生运动原理的高度移动的昆虫规模的微型机器人；2)设计和数学分析广泛适用于许多自组织复杂网络的鲁棒分散控制范例。为了验证我们的方法，我们将通过一组微型机器人群的年度演示来整合对机动性的机械研究和集体的算法研究，这将使理论和工程之间的持续反馈成为可能。

In nature, social insects have shown how mobility and multiplicity can be dramatically exploited: small ants effectively forage large areas, while tiny termites construct structures a million times their own size. Yet engineering a robotic swarm of similar complexity remains a significant challenge; we lack a fundamental understanding of how to effectively implement and leverage swarm behaviors. In this research we will design and implement a programmable microrobot swarm capable of robust collective intelligence in complex environments. Our project will focus on mobility and multiplicity: we seek to understand how scaling the agent size down and the swarm size up impacts the ability of collective networked systems. Our proposed work has two key threads: 1) the development of highly mobile insect-scale microrobots with biologically-derived locomotion principles and 2) the design and mathematical analysis of robust decentralized control paradigms which are broadly applicable to many self-organizing complex networks. To validate our approach, we will integrate the mechanical study of mobility and the algorithmic study of collectives through a set of annual demonstrations of microrobot swarms, which will enable continuous feedback between theory and engineering.