[Colloq] Talk: Multi-Robot Coordination Under Uncertainty With Limited Communication | Chris Amato | January 13, 2016 2pm-3pm 366WVH

[Walker, Lashauna]

Title: Multi-Robot Coordination Under Uncertainty With Limited Communication
Speaker: Chris Amato
Date: January 13, 2016
Time: 2:00pm-3:00pm
Location: 366 WVH

Title: Multi-Robot Coordination Under Uncertainty With Limited Communication

Abstract:
The decreasing cost and increasing sophistication of robot hardware has created many new opportunities for teams of robots to be deployed to solve real-world problems. Although many algorithms have been proposed for multi-robot domains, the vast majority are specialized to match specific team or problem characteristics. Ideally, more general methods would exist for controlling multi-robot teams in a wide range of domains. Such general models have led to significant progress in single-robot settings, but have not yet been adequately extended to the multi-robot case.

In this talk, I will discuss such a general model for multi-robot coordination as well as methods for automatically generating solutions from a high-level problem description. Notably, we provide the first principled solution methods that can optimize control and communication decisions while considering outcome uncertainty, sensor uncertainty and communication limitations. The resulting model and solution methods serve as the foundation for more effectively considering uncertainty throughout multi-robot domains. To demonstrate the scalability and effectiveness of these methods, I will show results from a cooperative beer delivery problem with heterogenous ground robots and a package delivery problem with teams of aerial robots. I will also discuss some future work for other domains such as search and rescue and cooperative manufacturing with teams of humans and robots.

Bio:
Christopher Amato is an Assistant Professor at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) where he co-leads the UNH Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Group with Wheeler Ruml. He received a BA from Tufts University and an MS and a PhD from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Before coming to UNH, Dr. Amato was a Research Scientist at Aptima, Inc. and a Postdoc and Research Scientist at MIT. He has published papers in leading artificial intelligence and robotics conferences (including winning a best paper prize at AAMAS-14 and being nominated for the best paper at RSS-15). He has also successfully co-organized several tutorials on team decision making and is currently co-authoring a book on the same subject. His research focuses on decision making under uncertainty in multi-agent and multi-robot systems.




Thank You.

LaShauna Walker
Events and Administrative Specialist
College of Computer and Information Science
Northeastern University
617-373-2763
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