raisingmaggie
1 HN recommender · recommended in 4 months, 2013–2022
3:55 · 3.5M views · Nov 13, 2010
Footage of a huge flock of starlings performing a murmuration, filmed by wildlife cameraman Dylan Winter. The flock moves in tightly coordinated shapes.
Cited as a benchmark for leaderless swarm behavior that robots and drones could aim to match.
4 comments from Hacker News
One with higher quality (not the same recording): this video . Youtube also refers to some other nice recordings from that one. (There's also a video with intermediate quality, and otherwise distracting parts, but amazing formations too: [LINK] / [LINK] ) Sadly I haven't found one with (just) original sound (no music).
> But why is there a "leader" to begin with? In swarms of birds the older birds do have some specific roles, but real "leaders" seem to me a brittle approach. I agree, and it seems nature agrees. Anyone who think a leader is required should watch a flight of a thousand starlings maneuver adeptly without collisions, a swarm of bees or ants carry out their duties without any command hierarchy, or a modern government rob the people blind with nary a collision between the overwhelming number of redundant departments. this video (starlings in flight)
If you manage to develop a drone swarm system that drops things, the last thing it will be used for is fighting fires. I'm waiting for someone to develop drones that swarm like starlings ( this video ). You could take down an entire battlegroup with a couple thousand suicide drones.
As someone who has worked a LOT with drones of all form factors (quad copters, propeller drones, battery and dead dinosaur-fueled), when drones can do this, drones will be cool: this video Context: [LINK]