Drone Swarm

Networking nanobots take to the sky

- Michael York

The word “swarm” conjures up images of thousands of bees getting ready to launch an attack to protect their hive. Add the word “drone” and that image turns into something from a sci-fi horror flick. That same combination, however, is actually the very thing that’s starting to change people’s perception about drones. If you’ve seen an aerial drone show in person or online, it’s obvious that a swarm of autonomous flying robots is not ominous. In fact, it’s just the opposite. The rapidly advancing technology is allowing for a whole new era of art in the sky.

So what exactly is a swarm? It’s basically a large group of individual things moving together as a unit. In nature, swarms come in many different forms. One of the most mesmerizing sights is that of a flock of starlings creating surrealistic shapes in the twilight sky (look up “murmuration” on the Internet if you’ve never witnessed it). Schools of fish behave in a similar fashion. And although we don’t think about it much, we humans swarm all the time: on the drive to work, at the store, or anytime we’re dealing with crowds.