(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2007)
Arkin, Ronald C.; Endo, Yoichiro; Chaimowicz, Luiz; Cowley, Anthony; Grocholsky, Ben; Hsieh, Mong-ying A.; Jung, Boyoon; Keller, James F.; Kumar, Vijay; MacKenzie, Douglas Christopher; Sukhatme, Gaurav S.; Taylor, Camillo J.; Wolf, Denis F.
In this paper, we report on the integration challenges of the various component
technologies developed towards the establishment of a framework for deploying
an adaptive system of heterogeneous robots for urban surveillance. In our
integrated experiment and demonstration, aerial robots generate maps that are
used to design navigation controllers and plan missions for the team. A team of
ground robots constructs a radio signal strength map that is used as an aid for
planning missions. Multiple robots establish a mobile, ad-hoc communication
network that is aware of the radio signal strength between nodes and can adapt
to changing conditions to maintain connectivity. Finally, the team of aerial
and ground robots is able to monitor a small village, and search for and localize
human targets by the color of the uniform, while ensuring that the information from the team is available to a remotely located human operator. The key
component technologies and contributions include (a) mission speci cation
and planning software; (b) exploration and mapping of radio signal strengths
in an urban environment; (c) programming abstractions and composition of
controllers for multi-robot deployment; (d) cooperative control strategies for
search, identi cation, and localization of targets; and (e) three-dimensional
mapping in an urban setting.