Coordinate
State local information, communication radius, timing and global inputs.
System anatomy · 08
Swarm coordination under agent loss
Test local rules, communication, identity, congestion, interference and collective decisions as agents fail, drift, collide or leave the observable region.
Evidence statusResearch-frontier evidence framework · stage, material, control and retrieval validation requiredLast reviewed: 16 August 2026
08
FUURAA thesis
Redundancy is a property to measure, not a benefit guaranteed by population size.
Engineering map
Turn the title into engineering objects that can be observed, measured and reviewed.
Each layer states the boundary to establish and the evidence needed for the next decision.
Degrade
Remove agents, corrupt messages and vary density, terrain and localisation.
Account
Track identity, mission contribution, loss and residual uncontrolled agents.
Verification questions
Write the questions first, then decide whether a demo, test, pilot or operating record can answer them.
Each question needs an object, conditions, denominator, threshold and accountable decision owner.
- 01
What failure fraction can the mission tolerate?
- 02
Does one failed agent block or mislead neighbours?
- 03
How are duplicated, missing or conflicting messages handled?
- 04
Can lost agents be found and contained?
Evidence to preserve
Enable the next reader to reconstruct conditions, results, failures and the decision.
A conclusion alone loses reviewability; raw records, configuration and exclusions matter too.
- 01
Evidence package 1
Agent-loss and communication-fault matrix
- 02
Evidence package 2
Density, interference and congestion trials
- 03
Evidence package 3
Identity and residual-agent ledger
Scope boundary
State what this evidence still cannot be generalised to.
- 01
Self-organisation in a controlled arena does not establish robust collective operation when agents are unobserved, adversarially disturbed or physically unrecoverable.
- 02
This is an engineering reading and decision framework; it does not replace application-specific risk assessment, conformity work, procurement acceptance or professional advice.
Sources and evidence status
Read standards scope, measurement evidence and application conclusions separately.
Source dates and review status remain visible; external sources open in a new tab.
01
Harvard SEAS · Published 2014-08-14 · verified 2026-08-16
↗02A self-organizing thousand-robot swarm
Shows that a large physical swarm can self-organise from local interactions and that real hardware exposes variability and failure modes hidden by simulation.
Harbin Institute of Technology · Published 2025-10-31 · verified 2026-08-16
↗03Microscale fish-like robot swarms for drug-delivery research
Reports magnetic coordination, three-dimensional motion, aggregation and shape-adaptive attachment, including ultrasound-guided control in in-vitro models.
NIST · Published 2024-06 · verified 2026-08-16
↗Research Opportunities for Advancing Measurement Science for Manufacturing Robotics
Identifies soft-robotics measurement needs across actuation, sensor integration, control, power, fabrication and materials, and calls for comparison with rigid and other alternatives.