Robots termites implement a project without a centralized koorodinatsii

A group of young scholars, namely two lovely girls and one boy from the Institute * Visa, working with Harvard, has created a mini-robots, repeating the complex behavior of termites in the construction of termite mounds. Based on the following prerequisites:

structures are quite complex
Each participant in the process has not advanced intelligence
the whole project has no generalized coordination
The study was modeled self-organizing robotic system, in which the behavior of each robot is placed in a simple set of conditions and actions are coordinated with other stakeholders. The project is self-regulated on the basis of the principle of "here and now" due to mutual adjustment of actors within certain rules of conduct.

* Just specify that in the Russian media research institute mistakenly referred to as "the Institute Weiss" - this confusion in pronunciation clearer Online Institute of .

Vimeo: video of the experiment.

The results of any successfully completed a scientific experiment may have practical value, even for areas that are not formally related to the subject of the study. Recall that the Institute develops materials for visa-based medicine process of copying functions and processes of living organisms. Nevertheless, the model samoorganizuyuscheyssya system carries out complex projects without drawings, can be of direct interest to specialists in the field of project management.

It remains to be seen what conclusions from this experiment will make project management theorists - whether it will result in the emergence of a new or revision of current methodologies? As far as possible use the resource of self-organizing teams in the organization?

In any case, the results of this experiment will be useful to know the leaders, make sure that without their intervention development team falls into uncontrollable entropy. Of course, the project manager is an important figure, however, can probably develop a methodology where this role is performed by "collective intelligence" based on a certain set of "rules of the game" in the current situation. I think it is not difficult to guess which of the currently existing methodologies is most similar - and draw appropriate conclusions.

References:
Main theme of the journal Science - the link you can find additional materials and videos.
Journal of Science: Report, 14 February 2014
Article Online BBC , February 13, 2014
Magazine Features: publication in py-HETE

More on this topic:
Habrahabr.ru - Flying robots build towers , January 14, 2012
Wikipedia - Групповая Robotics
Biomimetics (translation of the article on the site Inosmi)

Help:

Where: Visa Institute at Harvard University. Research Institute, creates a "technology inspired by nature" (Biologically Inspired Engineering) for implementation in the field of medicine.
Who: Justin Werfel , Kirstin Petersen , Radhika Nagpal (All three - PhD in Computer Science, ie . Ph.D., Computer Science)

Source: habrahabr.ru/post/213475/