{"id":216132,"date":"2025-06-17T14:03:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T19:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/engineers-develop-blueprint-for-robot-swarms-mimicking-bee-and-ant-construction"},"modified":"2025-06-17T14:03:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T19:03:17","slug":"engineers-develop-blueprint-for-robot-swarms-mimicking-bee-and-ant-construction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/engineers-develop-blueprint-for-robot-swarms-mimicking-bee-and-ant-construction","title":{"rendered":"Engineers develop blueprint for robot swarms, mimicking bee and ant construction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/engineers-develop-blueprint-for-robot-swarms-mimicking-bee-and-ant-construction.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Bees, ants and termites don\u2019t need blueprints. They may have queens, but none of these species breed architects or construction managers. Each insect worker, or drone, simply responds to cues like warmth or the presence or absence of building material. Unlike human manufacturing, the grand design emerges simply from the collective action of the drones\u2014no central planning required.<\/p>\n<p>Now, researchers at Penn Engineering have developed mathematical rules that allow virtual swarms of tiny robots to do the same. In <a href=\"https:\/\/techxplore.com\/tags\/computer+simulations\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">computer simulations<\/a>, the robots built honeycomb-like structures without ever following\u2014or even being able to comprehend\u2014a plan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThough what we have done is just a first step, it is a new strategy that could ultimately lead to a new paradigm in manufacturing,\u201d says Jordan Raney, Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics (MEAM), and the co-senior author of a new paper in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/sciadv.adu8260\" target=\"_blank\"><i>Science Advances<\/i><\/a>. \u201cEven 3D printers work step by step, resulting in what we call a brittle process. One simple mistake, like a clogged nozzle, ruins the entire process.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bees, ants and termites don\u2019t need blueprints. They may have queens, but none of these species breed architects or construction managers. Each insect worker, or drone, simply responds to cues like warmth or the presence or absence of building material. Unlike human manufacturing, the grand design emerges simply from the collective action of the drones\u2014no [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":732,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1488,2229,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drones","category-mathematics","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/732"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}