Spring 2013 GRASP Seminar: Volkan Isler, University of Minnesota, “Robotic Sensor Networks for Environmental Monitoring”

Abstract:Robotic Sensor Networks composed of robots and wireless sensing devices hold the potential to revolutionize environmental sciences by enabling researchers to collect data across expansive environments, over long, sustained periods of time. In this talk, I will report our progress on building such systems for two applications. The first application is on monitoring invasive fish (common carp) in inland lakes. In the second application, the robots act as data mules and collect data from sparsely deployed wireless sensors. After presenting results from field experiments, I will focus on two algorithmic challenges: planning robot paths to minimize the time to collect data from all sensors, and designing search strategies for finding (possibly mobile) targets.