From the article: "The findings could lead to the development of robots that can gather and herd livestock, crowd control techniques, or new methods to clean up the environment."

A simple robot sheepdog that gathers flocks of real ducks was demonstrated 16 years ago. Several related robots have been demonstrated since.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tefXVXscNDM (video from 1998)

The 1998 robot sheepdog was developed using a simulation model of flocking behaviour, and found to work on real flocks first-try.

This new work adds a neat trick of heading for the most outlying flock creature if it gets too far away. This is a nice extension.