Symbiotic Evolutionary Robot Organisms

We really like to blog about robots, just imagine what work they could facilitate in the future? A while ago we discussed tiny nano robots that could swarm together. It appears that Europe is also doing research on bio-inspired robotics. The Symbrion research project is an EU-funded attempt to investigate how many individual robot parts can act as one organic form (be symbiotic). That means they can operate separate, but are also able to share energy and computational resources if they dock together. The idea is that individual robots, like human beings, would possess different capabilities, e.g. they have different sensors. By working together the individual robots can achieve much more than operating in a stand-alone mode. The system would learn from experience (hence the term evolutionary) and this would make the organism very robust. The robots could be functional for hazardous environments where it is impossible (or just dangerous) for humans to work. At the moment they are building simple prototypes, so it may take a while before these robots come to rescue you from a burning house!