Beyond the Buzz: A Primer on Swarms
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By Maaike Verbruggen
April 29, 2020
In the world of emerging technologies, few concepts evoke excitement like swarms. The power of the swarm is in its natural formation – from bees, to schooling fish and flocking birds – the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Swarms can achieve far more complex tasks than single entities, precisely because they synchronise individual systems to operate as a collective with a common goal.
Extrapolating beyond nature, swarms begin to present limitless possibilities, particularly in relation to military and battlefield capabilities, where advantages far outweigh disadvantages. Swarms are scalable and adaptable, easily changing size and configuration depending on the mission. They are robust, with small losses having little impact on effectiveness. Decentralised swarms – without a central leader – are highly resilient in electromagnetic disruptions. In so-called emergent swarms, individual units can respond to the actions of other local units, without the involvement of any central coordination. Put simply, swarms display sophisticated behaviour at the collective level although consisting of only simple nodes.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2020/04/29/beyond_the_buzz_a_primer_on_swarms_115234.html
