This is a mass of kilobots, minimalistic robots that each contain an LED light, a vibrating motor and the ability to communicate with other nearby kilobots via infrared signals. And after a human tears a swath through their assembled clusters, the robots organically, intuitively, autonomously reform into a similar shape, guided by nothing so much as its own basic rules.
The experiment, by a team of researchers in Spain, the UK and the Netherlands, posits a simple question: Robotic swarms scan as intense, complex things, but what if people can engineer them to work together as simply as cells in organic matter?
The experiment is very simple, but this would have a lot of applications--including my idea for air defense drones providing low level air defense over our infantry units.
Or any other unit, but leg infantry which can't haul around enough air defense weapons to defeat enemy attack drones in large numbers would get the most initial benefit.
Let's do it to our enemies before they do it to us.
