Symbrion (Symbiotic Evolutionary Robot Organisms) is a project funded by the European Commission between 2008 and 2013 to develop a framework in which a homogeneous swarm of miniature interdependent robots can co-assemble into a larger robotic organism to gain problem-solving momentum.
One of the key aspects of Symbrion is inspired by the biological world: an artificial genome that allows storing and evolution of suboptimal configurations in order to increase the speed of adaptation.
The SYMBRION project does not start from zero; previous development and research from projects I-SWARM and the open-source SWARMROBOT serve as a mounting point. A large part of the developments within Symbrion is open-source and open-hardware.
Co-operating universities
Universität Stuttgart, Germany (Coordination) Universität Graz, Austria Vrije Universiteit, Netherlands Universität Karlsruhe, Germany Flanders Institute of Biotechnology, Belgium University of the West of England, Bristol, UK Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Germany University of York, UK Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique, France Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic