Phased Arrays

Phased Array research is a method for efficiently distributing a large task among the numerous smaller components of a swarm of nanomachines. It involves the addition of such components as sensor devices and computational capabilities to a swarm. This allows a swarm to better sense what is going on around it, and with added processors, a phased array can more effectively complete varied tasks. Large phased arrays of nanomachines can potentially be very powerful; with so many individual components, the difficulty of a task is spread among all members of the aggregate.

A complex example of a phased array swarm is contained in the excavator probes; these nanomachines look for key components (the elements and molecules that make up the majority of soil), they coordinate this with swarms of decompiler nanofabs, and other nanomachines ferry the raw elements to other locations.