The swarm-robotics case study considers ensembles of cooperating, self-aware robots. Robot swarms generally consist of relatively cheap robots that lack many of the capabilities of larger, more sophisticated models, but that can collaborate to collectively achieve tasks that no individual robot in the swarm could accomplish. Robot swarms are particularly well suited for operations in difficult environments where the risk of failure for individual robots is high.

For example, robot swarms might be used to rescue victims of natural disasters or industrial accidents. In these situations, the attrition rate of individual robots may be high, but a swarm of robot can continue to function even when individual robots have failed.