S1 Ep3: Firefighting Nanobots & Swarm Technologies

Are nanobots real? Are swarm robots inherently evil? Well it turns out they aren’t just the stuff of science fiction supervillains. Learn about their very real potential - from firefighting, to regrowing limbs, and even battling cancer - as Lars Klint chats to machine learning specialist Ivica Slavkov in this episode of TECHnically Possible. 

The discussion covers:

• Swarm robotics and its link with nature
• Moral technicality - Swarms save the world, but at what cost?
• What is swarm robotics?
• Pros: self-organized systems are robust
• Cons: imprecise emergent behavior
• Drones vs Swarms
• Morphogenesis or ‘how bodies build themselves’
• Turing Patterns - Why zebras have stripes
• Emergent behavior - more than the sum of its parts
• Firefighting robots!
• Cancer-killing bacteria swarms
• The endless redundancy of swarms
• Regenerating limbs
• Where’s the kill switch?

 

Ivica Slavkov is a computer scientist with a PhD in Machine Learning. He worked at the interface between biology and robotics and his work on morphogenesis in robotic swarms has been published in Science Robotics. Originally from Macedonia, he is currently working in Brussels, Belgium as a Machine Learning/Data Science expert at the European Commission.

 

Visit our site for more TECHnically Possible: https://www.pluralsight.com/resource-center/technically-possible 

Follow the link above to access each episode's transcript.

 

Episode Resources & References

• Connect with Ivica Slavkov on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/islavkov/ 
• Connect with Lars Klint on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lklint/

See more of Ivica’s work

• Morphogenesis in robot swarms (article): https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.aau9178
• Morphogenesis in robot swarms (short video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEm-fXkLw7g

 

Other resources mentioned in this episode

• A checklist for safe robot swarms (paywall): https://www.nature.com/articles/s42256-020-0213-2
• Bacteria synchronized for drug delivery (paywall): https://www.nature.com/articles/nature18915

If you’d like to get your education on, try these further resources about nanobots, swarm technologies and machine learning:

• Machine Learning for Absolute Beginners: https://acloudguru.com/course/machine-learning-for-absolute-beginners
• Key Concepts Machine Learning: https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/key-concepts-machine-learning
• Future of Tech: Nanotechnology: https://learn.acloud.guru/series/future-of-tech/view/201
• Swarm Robotic Behaviors and Current Applications: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frobt.2020.00036/full
• Emerging Applications of Nanotechnology in Healthcare Systems