Scientists Build Robot Ants Which Mimic Insect Behaviour

Scientists have built and tested robotic ants complete with tiny wires and circuits, which they say behave just like a real ant colony.

The robots do not resemble their insect counterparts; they are tiny cubes equipped with two watch motors to power the wheels that enable them to move. But their collective behavior is remarkably ant-like. The results of this study have been published in the journal PLoS Computational Biology.

"It's really interesting to look at social insects because [they] can give us a way to manage information in our societies," said Guy Theraulaz, a behavioral biologist at the National Center for Scientific Research in France, a co-author on the study. "We take some inspiration from nature."

Dr Simon Garnier from the New Jersey Institute of Technology explains how the robots were designed to mimic the way in which an ant colony navigates.

Just like ants, the robots "work together" to find their way from A to B - each one leaving a light trail that others follow.

These robotic ants, called "Alices" are no larger than a typical sugar cube and have been outfitted with two light sensors which act as their antennae. Similar to the Argentine ant's antennae, these light sensors are used to find the light trail left behind each one of the robot ants, thus replicating the scent trail used by real ants.

The Alices were set at the starting mark, or where a typical ant might call home. They were then set loose to navigate through the maze in the same way an ant would: randomly but in one general direction. The robots slowly began to navigate the maze successfully, and by following one another were able to eventually choose the most efficient route.