Managing Energy with Swarm Logic

February 4, 2009 | Source: Technology Review

REGEN Energy has has come up with a way to reduce energy use by mimicking the self-organizing behavior of bees.

Their wireless controller functions as a smart power switch. Once several controllers have been activated, they detect each other using a networking standard called ZigBee and begin negotiating the best times to turn equipment on and off. The devices learn the power cycles of each appliance and reconfigure them to maximize collective efficiency.