Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Swarming Satellites

This just in: NASA, MIT, and the ESA are working on satellites that swarm....

Yep - according to Worldchanging:

"We're not talking about sets of multiple satellites which can all be coordinated from the ground to work together; that doesn't count, useful as it is, because it requires control from the ground. We're not even talking about the ESA's set of satellites named SWARM from 2004; they were another of the dozens of groups of ground-controlled devices launched over the last several decades (which include communications satellites, GPS satellites, etc.) We're talking about satellites that exhibit autonomous collective behavior: devices that don't have a whole lot of intelligence in each one, and don't need to communicate with each other or mission control to decide their actions, but when taken as a group they can complete complex tasks that are difficult or impossible for large single satellites (or astronauts) to achieve."

Swarming - from complex mobilities to satellites! I'll keep an eye on this...

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