Finally, a thesis topic!

First of all, I completed the final draft of a literature review for my senior seminar, which can be viewed here. (No embedded viewer this time, I had too many problems with that)

After considering the topics I proposed in my last post, I've decided on a specific topic for my senior thesis.

I want to create a handful small robots, which can work together to accomplish specific goals. I will be using ideas from swarm intelligence and swarm robotics to create a "swarm" of small independent robots which can cooperate to complete a certain task, without any outside control. There are still many questions to answer, such as what components and sensors will the robots need, what type of micro controller to use, and what task(s) they will accomplish, but I at least now have some idea of what I will be doing (and can research specific materials related to this topic).

Obviously, the first step would be to research how others have designed similar robots, and what tasks they were able to accomplish. I would start out by designing a prototype robot, and see if I can get it to achieve a certain simple task on its own. Later, once I finalize the design, I'll create a couple more identical robots, and then have them communicate with one another to achieve a harder task, without any outside control from me.