Swarms of Self-Organized Nanorobots

This chapter begins with a brief assessment of the state of the art in nanorobot hardware. Then, it focuses on programming and coordination issues that arise when large numbers of nanorobots are used for tasks such as building prescribed shapes. The active self-assembly system developed at the University of Southern California is discussed as an example of a proposed system that is capable of constructing arbitrary shapes. The system compiles the desired shape into a set of reactive, stateless rules to drive a large swarm of identical and identically programmed robots. Extensive simulations show that the system self-organizes and is capable of self-repair when numerous faults are present. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the current limitations of nanorobotic swarms, and an outlook on future developments.