Spawned from a project led by Dr. Marco Dorigo of the Free University of Brussels, through funding by the European Commission, the Swarmanoid is not a single robot, but a literal swarm of autonomous bots that are able to strategically problem-solve assigned tasks through complex choreography. Watch them execute the skillful heist of a bookshelf in the embedded video below, which won the project team the  Artificial Intelligence Video competition in San Francisco.

 

It may just be me, but that helicopter-bot bears a scary resemblance to the hunter-killer aerials from the Terminator films. Perhaps during the inevitable robo-apocalypse, we’ll look back and realize that this is where it all began.

Thanks to The Peripherals Initiative Jam Participant Alex Bethke for spotting this on i09.

Photo: © The Swarmanoid Project, Future and Emerging Technologies, 2011