Kilobot Collective Behaviors: Phototaxis, Gradients, Sync, Pattern Formation

A composition showing various collective behaviors programmed on a Kilobot swarm. Phototaxis: each robot uses a single sensor to move up the gradient of light. Gradient formation: information propagates from a single source robot, other robots color themselves red, blue, or green, modulo their distance from the source in information hops. Synchronization: each robot has an oscillator and changes the phase to match its local neighbors until the whole system converges. Dynamic Pattern Formation: the robots use distributed triangulation and a few seed robots to form a global coordinate system for pattern formation. This is combined with synchronization to allow the group to flash the words “Hello World“.