Harvard scientists have created a swarm of swimming robots that could pave the way for new methods of environmental monitoring and searching coral reefs. The autonomous “Bluebots” synchronize their movements like a real school of fish, basing their individual decisions on the behavior of their neighbors. The collective Blueswarm deploys a 3D vision-based coordination system and 3D locomotion to navigate, while each individual bot uses two cameras and LED lights to follow its schoolmates. Their fisheye lens cameras detect the LEDs of nearby Bluebots, and use a novel algorithm to calculate where they are and where they’re going. This allows the school…

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