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GRASP Seminar Series: Fall 2009
October 23rd, 11:00 a.m., Wu & Chen Auditorium, Levine Hall (3330 Walnut Street)
Lynne Parker
University of Tennessee
"General Information Quality-Based Approach for Satisfaction of Sensor Constraints in Tightly-Coupled Multi-Robot Tasks"
Abstract: Many architectures have been proposed to solve tightly-coupled multirobot tasks (MT) through coalitions of heterogeneous robots. However, several issues remain unaddressed. As coalitions are formed, sensor constraints among robots are also established. For example, in a leader-follower task, follower robots must keep leader robots within their sights, while in a box-pushing task, pusher robots must maintain proper pushing positions relative to other robot teammates while aligning their pushing direction to the goal. The question of how to keep these constraints satisfied during the entire execution, from initial configurations to completeness of the task, remains an open issue. In addition, environmental factors, both static and dynamic, can influence the maintenance of the constraints. Moreover, problems arise when the constraints are unsatisfiable given the current circumstances. For example, the sight of the leader might be blocked or there might be obstacles in the pushing path. In order to create a general method to address these issues for various applications, we propose an approach based on measures of information quality using sampling techniques. Our approach to the general method combines the use of sensor models, environment sampling, measures of information quality, a motion model with sampling, and a constraint model. To illustrate this method, we apply the approach to solve robot tracking and navigation tasks both in simulation and with physical robots. Experimental results illustrate the flexibility and robustness of the approach.
Biography: Dr. Lynne Parker is Professor in the Min H. Kao Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she directs the research of the Distributed Intelligence Laboratory. She joined UTK in 2002, after working for several years as a Distinguished Research and Development Staff Member at Oak Ridge National Lab. Dr. Parker received her Ph.D. degree in computer science from MIT, performing her research in MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Dr. Parker has published over 100 articles in the areas of mobile robot cooperation, human-robot cooperation, robotic learning, intelligent agent architectures, and robot navigation. For this research, she was awarded the PECASE (Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers) in 2000. Lynne serves on several national and international boards, such as the National Research Council's (NRC) Panel on Air and Ground Vehicle Technology, which evaluates research at the Army Research Laboratory, and the NRC Study Panel on Persistent Surveillance, which is exploring technological solutions to defeat the Improvised Explosive Device threat. She is a senior Editor of IEEE Transactions on Robotics, and is on the Editorial Boards of IEEE Intelligent Systems and the Swarm Intelligence journal.
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