Fish-like robots interact with each other without human assistance

Schools of fish exhibit complex synchronized behaviors: it helps them find food, migrate, and

No one in particular coordinatesThese movements, and the fish don't tell each other what to do next.This behavior occurs as a result of what is known as implicit coordination, where individual fish adoptdecisions based on what they see and what they dotheir neighbors.

This type of decentralized, autonomous self-organization and coordination has long attracted scientists: they decided to use it in robotics.A team of researchers from Harvard's Kennedy School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.John A. Paulson (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute for Biological Engineering has developed fish-inspired robots that cansynchronize your movements. 

Robots often work in places thatinaccessible or dangerous to people, and areas where human intervention may not even be possible. In such situations, you really need to have a highly autonomous robot swarm. By leveraging the fish's behavioral skillset and 3D visual perception, we were able to create a system that has a high degree of autonomy and flexibility underwater. 

Florian Berlinger, Ph.D. candidate at SEAS and Wyss and first author of the paper

A robot swarm inspired by fish has receivedname Blueswarm. Researchers have developed a vision-based coordination system based on blue LEDs. Each underwater robot is equipped with two cameras and three LED lights. Onboard cameras detect the LED lights of nearby fish and use a special algorithm to determine their distance, direction and course. 

So Blueswarm can demonstrate complex self-organized behavior: in particular, aggregation, scattering and circle formation.

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