From ants to robots and back: How robotics can contribute to the study of collective animal behavior

Abstract

Swarm robotics has developed partly from biological discoveries that have been made on the organization of animal societies during the last thirty years. In this article, I review some of the ways robotics contributes in return to the study of collective animal behavior. I argue that robotics can bring significant improvements in this field, from a technical, conceptual and educational point of view. I base my discussion on five observations I have made while collaborating with computer scientists: robots require a complete specification; robots are physical entities; robots implement new technologies; robots can be inadvertent sources of biological inspiration; and robots are "cool" gadgets. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.