CAMBRIDGE — Researchers at MIT developed FloatForm, a system of small aquatic robots that assemble into reconfigurable structures on water with minimal human direction. The work was published in Nature Communications on July 9, 2026.

Each robot measures 21 centimeters square and contains its own thrusters, sensors, and magnetic latches. The FloatForm design draws inspiration from fire ants, which link their bodies to form rafts during floods. The project originates from the labs of Daniela Rus, Panasonic Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and Carlo Ratti, professor of practice of urban technologies and planning at MIT and director of the Senseable City Lab. The project grows out of Roboat, a joint effort with the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions that deployed full-size autonomous vessels on Amsterdam's canals.

FloatForm uses a lightweight central planner to assign final positions to the robots; they coordinate by exchanging positions with their immediate neighbors. "What we're trying to do is to have minimal central intervention, and have them all move together at the same time," said Alejandro Gonzalez-Garcia, a former researcher with MIT CSAIL and the Senseable City Lab.

Experiments at MIT used a fleet of eight robots. In these tests, the robots gathered from random positions into a target shape, latched into a rigid structure, broke apart, reassembled into a new configuration, and drove across a pool as a single vessel. Each experimental run took four to eight minutes.

"Our FloatForm projects envisions a future where the waterfront becomes a programmable extension of the city, where autonomous boats can self-organize into bridges, platforms, and other useful structures on demand," Rus said. "This kind of distributed robotics opens new possibilities for mobility, emergency response, public space, and infrastructure on water."

Wei Wang, lead author of the paper and head of the Marine Robotics Lab at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said the system turns static water surfaces into dynamic, programmable spaces. "With FloatForm, we are essentially turning static water surfaces into dynamic, programmable spaces," Wang said. "Imagine an urban environment where public space isn't fixed, but can autonomously expand, contract, or reconfigure on demand."

Simulations showed the framework scaling to swarms of 64 robots. "The beauty of this largely decentralized approach is that the computation doesn't get bogged down as the swarm grows," Wang said. "Whether you are working with eight boats or 80, the entire fleet coordinates and moves simultaneously." "Because the overall assembly time doesn't significantly increase in principle, the system remains highly scalable," Wang said.