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Swarm Roboticsat the

University of Wyoming

Dr. William M. Spears

Dr. Diana F. Spears

Computer Science Department

University of Wyoming

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Traditional Robotics

• Traditionally, robotics researchers focus on the development of highly capable and expensive robots. Only a few are made.– Predator airplanes

• With swarm robotics, the emphasis is on having lots of relatively inexpensive robots.– Micro-air vehicles

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Advantages

• Swarms of robots are effective:– They can perform tasks that one expensive

robot cannot.

• Swarms are robust:– Even if some robots fail, the swarm can still

achieve the task.

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Goal

• The UW Distributed Robotics Laboratory serves as an environment for prototyping and demonstration of proof-of-principle for swarm robotics.

• Our goal is to design methods for enabling groups of robots to perform important real-world tasks…

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Tasks

• Search and Rescue • Surveillance• Convoy / Formation Movement

– Organizing into a Formation– Movement Toward a Goal– Avoiding Obstacles– Chemical Plume Source Tracing

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Search and Rescue Project

Graduate Student:

Wesley Kerr

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Search and Rescue Simulation

Task: Robotsmust avoidobstacles andeach other whilereaching the rescue area.

Rescue Area

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Surveillance Project

Funded by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)

Graduate Students:Wesley Kerr

Suranga HettiarachchiDimitri Zarzhitsky

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Scenario: Unmanned Aerial VehiclesCooperate To Detect Targets

Terrain detector

Target detector

UAV UAV UAV

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Surveillance Simulation

UAVs forest

Task: UAVs must detectas many of the movingtargets as possible, whileavoiding each other.

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Convoy / Formation Movement Project

Graduate Student:Suranga Hettiarachchi

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Formation OrganizationTask 1: Robots must organize themselves intoformation.

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Formation MovementTask 2: Robots must organize themselves intoformation and then movetoward a light source.

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Formation Movement Simulation

Task 3: Robots must organize themselves intoformation and then movetoward a goal, while avoiding obstacles.

goal

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Chemical Plume Tracing Project

Portions of this work to be funded by the

Joint Robotics Program.

Testing to take place at Camp Guernsey.

Graduate Student:

Dimitri Zarzhitsky

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Plume Tracing SimulationRobots must organize themselves into a

formation, and then locate the source of a chemical hazard, while avoiding obstacles.

source

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Plume Tracing Experiments

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Ultrasonic Localization for Swarms of Robots

Portions of this work to be funded by theJoint Robotics Program.

Testing to take place at Camp Guernsey.

Graduate Students:Paul Maxim

Thomas Kunkel

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Hardware implementation Swarm robot

technology equipped with a localization system

Use trilateration method for local positioning system

Robot prototype

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Project Participants• FACULTY

– Jerry Hamann, Cameron Wright (Electrical and Computer Engineering)– M. P. Sharma (Chemical Engineering)– John Schabron (Chemist, Western Research Institute)– Dave Walrath, Doug Smith, Dimitri Mavriplis (Mechanical Engineering)– Dan Stanescu (Mathematics)– David Thayer (Physics and Astronomy)

• GRADUATE STUDENTS– Rodney Heil– Suranga Hettiarachchi– Wesley Kerr– Lee Frey– Thomas Kunkel– Paul Maxim– Mark Patterson– Yi Shi– Dimitri Zarzhitsky

• UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS– Paul Hansen– Kurt Lawton– Ben Palmer– David Weiser– Ella Wellman– Brian Zuelke

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Questions and

Robot Demonstration