Cooperation in collective systems

Living systems rarely operate in isolation. By interacting with other individual entities, mol- ecules, cells, animals, and humans are able to achieve behaviors, functionalities, structures, and other properties that are not achievable by the individuals alone. In this chapter we will illus- trate the key principles and properties that characterize natural collective cooperating systems and methods through which artificial collective systems displaying analogous properties can be synthesized. In doing that we will focus in particular on collective systems formed by colonies of cooperating individuals such as social insects and collective robotics systems.