Botar: For a self‑replicating swarm, start with a modular, single‑piece frame made of ultralight carbon‑fiber composite and a lightweight aluminum alloy for the actuator mounts. Use a microcontroller with a built‑in watchdog timer; if it fails to ping, the robot enters a safe mode and shuts down all actuators. Add a small, low‑power “kill switch” on each unit that triggers a brief burst of gas or a magnetic latch to lock the joints if an anomaly is detected. For replication, each robot carries a spare set of 3D‑printed parts in a protective pouch; if a part is damaged, the robot swaps it out and flags the failure in the swarm’s shared log. Use a simple majority voting scheme so the swarm can re‑route tasks if a subset of units goes offline. Finally, program the firmware to monitor battery voltage and current spikes; if any value goes outside safe thresholds, the robot aborts replication and returns to a base station for inspection. This keeps the hardware light, but gives you a distributed, fail‑safe swarm.