TYOC#45/52: SwarmControl
The Year of CoCoRo 45/52: This week we demonstrate that our swarms are autonomously shoaling on the one hand, but still can be controlled from the outside on the other hand: Groups of Lily robots emit blue light blinking signals that can be seen by other nearby robots. Those robots can estimate their distance and angle to other robots this way and autonomously relocate to stay together. And if just one of the robots is radio-controlled then the human operator can in fact influence (and thus control) the whole swarm. However, the operator cannot just move straightly to the target. The operator has to observe the swarm and also react to it. Or as Tobias, who was doing this in this movie, called it: "You have to feel the swarm".