In 1998 the Center for Distributed Robotics was started by Dr. Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos (who serves as its director) and I returned to Minnesota to work on this project. My job, as associate director, has been both technical and administrative, doing a little (make that, a lot) of everything from writing code to writing grant proposals.

This has been one of the most exciting and challenging research experiences I have had or could hope for. I've had the opportunity to work with a great group of people and we have achieved results that have been praised both by our peers and by our sponsors. Some of what we have accomplished is reported in the following papers and video. (You may have also seen popular accounts of this work on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, WB, Public Television, or even HBO's Comedy Central. We've also been reported on in newspapers and magazines around the US, in Canada, and in Europe.)

The first paper we published is a brief overview of the system, mostly discussing the hardware and physical capabilities of the robots.

Dean F. Hougen, Jordan C. Bonney, John R. Budenske, Mark Dvorak, Maria Gini, Donald G. Krantz, Fred Malver, Brad Nelson, Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos, Paul E. Rybski, Sascha A. Stoeter, Richard Voyles, Kemal Berk Yesin.   "Reconfigurable Robots for Distributed Robotics."   In Government Microcircuit Applications Conference, pages 72-75, March 2000.

Our second paper presents a more detailed discussion of the system, again covering the hardware and physical capabilities of the robots. This paper also gives details of tests carried out to measure the performance of the robots.

Dean F. Hougen, Saifallah Benjaafar, Jordan C. Bonney, John R. Budenske, Mark Dvorak, Maria Gini, Donald G. Krantz, Perry Y. Li, Fred Malver, Brad Nelson, Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos, Paul E. Rybski, Sascha A. Stoeter, Richard Voyles, Kemal Berk Yesin.   "A Miniature Robotic System for Reconnaissance and Surveillance."   In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pages 501-507, April 2000.

At the same time that we published our second paper, we published a video that shows the robots in action. (The link below is to a digitized version of the draft that we originally submitted for review for admission to the conference. The final version, which won the best video award, is available in the video proceedings of the conference.)

Paul E. Rybski, Dean F. Hougen, Saifallah Benjaafar, Jordan Bonney, John R. Budenske, Mark Dvorak, Maria Gini, Howard French, Donald G. Krantz, Perry Y. Li, Fred Malver, Bradley Nelson, Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos, Sascha A. Stoeter, Richard Voyles and Kemal Berk Yesin.   "A Robotic Reconnaissance and Surveillance Team."   In Video Proceedings, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, April 2000. [Quicktime, 10 MB; AVI, no audio, 12 MB]

Once we had the robots running, we demonstrated how they could function as an autonomous team.

	Paul E. Rybski, Sascha A. Stoeter, Michael D. Erickson, Maria Gini, Dean F. Hougen, Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos.   "A Team of Robotic Agents for Surveillance."   In Proceedings of the International Conference on Autonomous Agents, pages 9-16, June 2000. [ps; pdf]
	Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos, Sascha A. Stoeter, Paul Rybski, Maria Gini, Dean F. Hougen, and Michael Erickson.   "Experiments with a Team of Miniature Robots."   In Proceedings of the IEEE Mediterranean Conference on Control & Automation, unnumbered, July 2000. [ps; pdf]

To go beyond small groups of robots, and to make the best use of available resources, a novel software architecture was necessary.

	Sascha A. Stoeter, Paul E. Rybski, Michael D. Erickson, Maria Gini, Dean F. Hougen, Donald G. Krantz, Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos, and Michael Wyman.   "A Robot Team for Exploration and Surveillance: Design and Architecture."   In The 6Th International Conference on Intelligent Autonomous Systems, pages 767--774, July 2000. [ps; pdf]
	Sascha A. Stoeter, Paul E. Rybski, Maria Gini, Dean F. Hougen, and Nikolaos P. Papanikolopoulos.   "Verteilte Steuerung Heterogener Mobiler Roboter."   In 16. Fachgespraech Autonome Mobile Systeme, pages 270-277, November 2000. [ps; pdf]

For demonstrations, a light-weight system, capable of simple autonomous behaviors and teleoperation, was developed.

Paul E. Rybski, Dean F. Hougen, Sascha A. Stoeter, Maria Gini, Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos.   "Control of Multiple Small Surveillance Robots at AAAI 2000."   In Proceedings of the AAAI 2000 Mobile Robot Competition and Exhibition Workshop, to appear, August 2000. [ps; pdf]

While not printed until October 2000, this book chapter gives the motivation underlying much of our work to date and suggests directions for future research.

Dean F. Hougen, Michael D. Erickson, Paul E. Rybski, Sascha A. Stoeter, Maria Gini, and Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos.   "Autonomous Mobile Robots and Distributed Exploratory Missions."   In Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems 4, L. E. Parker, G. Bekey, and J. Barhen (eds.), Springer-Verlag, Tokyo, 2000, pages 221-230. [ps; pdf]

To keep a large collection of robots connected and functioning as a team when the communication links between them keep changing takes a special networking scheme.

John Budenske, Jordan Bonney, Atiq Ahamad, Ranga Ramanujan, Dean F. Hougen, Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos.   "Nomadic Routing Applications for Wireless Networking in a Team of Miniature Robots."   In IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, pages 3306-3311, October 2000.

This article brings together much of what we have done and presents it to a wider audience.

Paul E. Rybski, Nikolaos P. Papanikolopoulos, Sascha A. Stoeter, Donald G. Krantz, Kemal B. Yesin, Maria Gini, Richard Voyles, Dean F. Hougen, Brad Nelson, Michael D. Erickson.   "Enlisting Rangers and Scouts for Reconnaissance and Surveillance."   In IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, 7(4): 14-24, December 2000. [ps; pdf]

The software architecture has been expanded.

Paul E. Rybski, Ian Burt, Tom Dahlin, Maria Gini, Dean F. Hougen, Donald G. Krantz, Florent Nageotte, Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos, Sascha A. Stoeter. "System Architecture for Versatile Autonomous and Teleoperated Control of Multiple Miniature Robots." In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, to appear, May 2001. [ps; pdf]

The limited bandwidth on the scouts has provided a hurdle that must be overcome.

Paul E. Rybski, Sascha A. Stoeter, Maria Gini, Dean F. Hougen, and Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos. "Dynamic Scheduling of a Fixed Bandwidth Communications Channel for Controlling Multiple Robots." In Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Autonomous Agents, to appear, May 2001. [ps; pdf]

Paul E. Rybski, Sascha A. Stoeter, Maria Gini, Dean F. Hougen, Nikolaos Papanilolopoulos. "Effects of Limited Bandwidth Communications Channels of the Control of Multiple Robots." In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, to appear, October 2001. [ps; pdf]

Naturally, we have several more articles under consideration for publication at this time. (Even though I have moved to the University of Oklahoma, I am still working with my colleagues from the University of Minnesota to continue and expand on this research.)

Last update: 10 September 2001

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