Everyone knows robot ants can’t move a rubber tree plant. Oh shoot, they can!

A team of Swiss researchers with bugs on the brain has created an army of simple robotic “ants” capable of some impressive feats. The takeaway from these 10 gram bots, which are inexpensive to make and surprisingly simple in design? Teamwork makes the dream work.

As described in a new paper in the journal Nature, the ants can communicate with each other, assign roles among themselves, and complete complex tasks and overcome obstacles together. That means that while simple compared to much more complex autonomous agents, these origami-inspired robots can solve complex challenges, such navigating uneven surfaces or, yes, moving comparatively huge objects.

The robots, which are T-shaped and called Tribots by researchers at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, a Swiss research institute, have infrared and proximity sensors for detection and communication. Made of foldable thin materials, they’re also easy to manufacture. The actuated robots can jump and crawl to explore uneven surfaces.

“Their movements are modeled on those of Odontomachus ants,” says Zhenishbek Zhakypov, the first author of the Nature article. “These insects normally crawl, but to escape a predator, they snap their powerful jaws together to jump from leaf to leaf.” Read more

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Everyone knows robot ants can’t move a rubber tree plant. Oh shoot, they can!

A team of Swiss researchers with bugs on the brain has created an army of simple robotic “ants” capable of some impressive feats. The takeaway from these 10 gram bots, which are inexpensive to make and surprisingly simple in design? Teamwork makes the dream work.

Everyone knows robot ants can’t move a rubber tree plant. Oh shoot, they can!

A team of Swiss researchers with bugs on the brain has created an army of simple robotic “ants” capable of some impressive feats. The takeaway from these 10 gram bots, which are inexpensive to make and surprisingly simple in design? Teamwork makes the dream work.