SwarmOS
Surrounded by buzzing robots that end the session by performing in an orchestra, James McLurkin, a PhD student at MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, talks about distributed robotics and swarm behavior to a packed house. His work has its roots in “swarm intelligence”—the study of collective behavior in decentralised, self-organised systems. Think of ant colonies, bird flocking, animal herding, fish schooling, and many other examples in nature.