covering the week's top text doors it's
like Linux bias researchers have
developed an algorithm that could stop
self-driving vehicles from getting into
crashes and traffic jams the algorithm
divides the ground beneath the machines
into a grid the robots learn their
position through technology similar to
GPS and coordinate their own movements
together through sensors that assess
where there's free space to move
Northwestern engineers Michael
Rubenstein says the robots refused to
move to a spot until that spot is free
and until they know that no other robots
are moving to that same spot they are
careful and reserve a space ahead of
time Rubenstein's team tested their
algorithm on a swarm of 100 robots set
up in their lab to cut out any
distractions the robots were only
allowed to sense three or four of their
closest neighbors this restricted their
vision it and it made the system easier
to scale as the robots can interact
locally without needing global
information think about the impact of
that so the advantage of a swarm of
robots is that there is no centralized
controller that can disrupt the whole
system this allows them to work together
to accomplish any task even if one of
them breaks down
this gives the system and obvious
application in warehouse robots but
Rubinstein believes it could actually
also cut traffic and collisions for
self-driving vehicles on the road he
said quote by understanding how to
control our swarm robots to form shapes
we can understand how to control fleets
of autonomous vehicles as they interact
with each other