We always look at the things around us to derive inspiration for something completely new and at most times it’s the nature that is the guiding pathway. Radhika Nagpal has derived inspiration from the decentralized behavior of multicellular organisms or social insects (like ants and termites) that have natural ability to make system self-organized. This very inspiration led to the development of modular and swarm robots that can work in decentralized manner. One such application of robots is this self-balancing modular table which has 12 independent identically programmed modules rather than by a single centralized computer.
The aim of these independent components is to keep the table balanced and surface absolutely level no matter what the underlying objects are. For this independent components of the modular table need to communicate with each other at every instant. Nagpal added by saying that mathematics and theories of self-organization can help in learning more about the ways biological organisms manage to strike the right balance between functionality and decentralized behavior.
Via: Wyss
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