Two sister projects, both funded under EU's Seventh Framework Programme spanning from January 2008 to 2013, are investing heavily in swarm robotics research.

Although not yet realized, swarm robotics has numerous advantages such as:

1) system failure resistance by high redundancy

2) the ability to conquer goals only possible through teamwork

3) mass manufacturability with low per unit costs, etc.

It is the goal of these two projects to research and develop the technology needed to make each advantage a reality.

The Symbrion project has four distinct goals: to create a "platform for exploring artificial evolution and pervasive evolve-ability," develop the required computational on-board resources, support artificial immunology and embryology research, and manufacture a "large number of light modules."

The Replicator project also has four distinct goals: to create an "intelligent, reconfigurable and adaptable 'carrier' of sensors," build a "sensors- and communication-rich platform," ensure high-reliability in an open-ended environment, and manufacture a "medium number of heavy modules."

For a quick summary of the various prototype platforms and current research, check out this video of their past work:

One major challenge the researchers point out is miniaturized power sources. As batteries are scaled down, so is the voltage and charge capacity. Their smallest robot, the I-SWARM bot, draws power from a tiny solar cell, while their larger Jasmine machines use a battery.

Being incredibly small also limits computational capacity. Their current onboard processor has just eight kilobytes of program memory and two kilobytes of RAM, although typical of modern microcontrollers used by most hobbyists.

For more info, see the image gallery, many informative videos, and their publications.