Scientists in the U.S. revealed small robots on Feb. 13 that can handle tasks like real-life termites, without following orders from a boss, according to a report by AFP.
The creatures, known as TERMES, were manufactured as part of a four-year project and are capable of building staircases and pyramids.
Scientists from Harvard University discussed their study at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting.
According to the study, the robots are designed to rely on the concept commonly known as stigmergy, which is a form of "implicit communication," where machines changes in each other's' environment and act based on those changes, according to AFP.
"You can give the robots, in effect, a picture of what you want them to build," said Justin Werfel, a scientist at Harvard University's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, according to AFP. "And it doesn't matter how many of them there are or whether that number changes or which robot does what and when," he told reporters.
The project was outlined in the February 13 edition of the journal Science.
The bots are equipped with three motors, and each has limited sensing ability that gives information about the machine's surroundings.
At least one robot in a team works in parallel with the rest, without knowing the overall process, of who is building what and where, according to the study.
Yet somehow the TERMES are very productive and the project has been described by the team of Harvard researchers as "an important proof of concept for scalable, distributed artificial intelligence."
Researchers feel that eventually the robots will be able to build things people need to get done like placing sandbags down ahead of a flood or constructing habitats on Mars.
"We co-designed robots and bricks in an effort to make the system as minimalist and reliable as possible," said co-author Kirstin Petersen, a graduate student at Harvard, according to AFP.
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