I have been doing further research on Army Ants and other ant species. Among these other ant species are Weaver ants (use larval silk to tie leaves together to make nests), Honeypot ants (some store food in their bodies), and Harvester ants. In this research I found quite a few characteristics of ants that would suit themselves quite well to my design. Many ant species are polymorphic, meaning that the ants, particularly the workers, can develop remarkably different physical forms in order to fulfill different roles. Such specializations include the ability to store food, larger size, the ability to break hard seeds, having wings, etc. It occurs to me that it would be to have a solution which can adapt its size and function to more efficiently deal with the environment at hand. Soft rock requires different tools than vegetation or hard rock. Another exaple would be smaller and faster bots that could create pilot tunnels with minimal tools which would then allow more bots specialized towards mass material removal to come in, or to allow a larger workable surface area, and thus more workers to work removing material. It sould also mean bots oriented more toward power production or material refinement. When it come to the bots function in structural surface type roles, bigger bots might prove better for the basic sturcture, while smaller bots might work better at the surface.
The thing I am currently most unsure of is how the bots would convert the mined materials into resources that they themselves could use to make more bots, whether or not there would be a biological component.
Army Ants (Eciton Burchellii) making a bridge (above) and starting a nest called a bivouac(below)
A major worker
A Submajor worker
A soldier and two minor workers
Honeypot Ants
Major and minor Green Weaver Ants
Minor and major workers of "Pheidole rhea"
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0608/feature7/index.html
http://www.antweb.org/world.jsp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eciton_burchellii
http://www.myrmecos.net/ants/eciton.html
http://www.nps.navy.mil/se/ravi/Swarm/IME_module_description.pdf
I am also looking at wasps, bees, termites, and spiders. Wasps, bees, and termites are related to ants and also have social hierarchies, and make use of multiple units working together in order to achieve goals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee