Robots Share Each Others' Senses

Engineers from Örebro University in Sweden have trained robots to cooperate with each other by sharing their sensors.

The robots are being developed by PhD student Robert Lundh working in the Mobile Robotics Lab.

The robots can cooperate with each other by deciding that one of the other robots in their team can help them then wirelessly seeing the world through the their teammates sensors.
For example, robots trying to find their way around an obstacle can look at it from different perspectives. Where a single robot may not be able to see all sides of a situation, a team can cooperate to get a complete picture. The robots are able to do more as a team than each of them could do individually.

The robots can choose to work alone or to combine their efforts into a team. Lunch says it is very much like any teamwork, "Humans don't exist in fixed teams," he says. "They cooperate as needed."

Robot team-mates tap into each others' talents - tech - 15 August 2006 - New Scientist Tech