Swarmanoid Robot Project
The Swarmanoid Project will be launched in October, led by Dr. Marco Dorigo of the Universite Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium and sponsored by the EU.
A Swarmanoid robot is a robot that is able to function in a human environment, like a humanoid robot, but it is made up of seperate units, each with their own funtion.
The Swarmanoid is expected to be made from eye-bots, hand-bots and foot-bots.
The eye-bots climb around up high, say along the ceiling, and watch what's going on. They act as the eyes for the hand-bots and foot-bots - just as our eyes in our head see for our hands and feet.
The hand-bots will be wall climbers with limbs. They will be able to move across vertical surfaces and pick things up.
The foot-bots will move across the floor to carry stuff. The foot-bots could even carry the hand-bots or eye-bots if they need to move across the room.
![](http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7058/865/320/s-bot_passing-gap2.jpg)
The tasks that are assigned to each member of the robot swarm will depend on their skills and on the need of the group. The Swarmanoid will act as a single body but will be distributed between each of the seperate members of the swarm.
The (US $2.5 million) project is planned to last 42 months. It is an extension of the Swarm-bots project which completed in 2005.
The foot-bots for the Swarmanoid will be just like the s-bots from the earlier swarm project. The s-bots worked together as a self-organizing team. They also could hook onto each other to act as a single entity when necessary.
The Engineer Online - What a lot of bots
A Swarmanoid robot is a robot that is able to function in a human environment, like a humanoid robot, but it is made up of seperate units, each with their own funtion.
The Swarmanoid is expected to be made from eye-bots, hand-bots and foot-bots.
The eye-bots climb around up high, say along the ceiling, and watch what's going on. They act as the eyes for the hand-bots and foot-bots - just as our eyes in our head see for our hands and feet.
The hand-bots will be wall climbers with limbs. They will be able to move across vertical surfaces and pick things up.
The foot-bots will move across the floor to carry stuff. The foot-bots could even carry the hand-bots or eye-bots if they need to move across the room.
![](http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7058/865/320/s-bot_passing-gap2.jpg)
The tasks that are assigned to each member of the robot swarm will depend on their skills and on the need of the group. The Swarmanoid will act as a single body but will be distributed between each of the seperate members of the swarm.
The (US $2.5 million) project is planned to last 42 months. It is an extension of the Swarm-bots project which completed in 2005.
The foot-bots for the Swarmanoid will be just like the s-bots from the earlier swarm project. The s-bots worked together as a self-organizing team. They also could hook onto each other to act as a single entity when necessary.
The Engineer Online - What a lot of bots