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AuRA Lecture by Kenneth Zick |
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Date: December 16, 2005
Time: 10:00am
Location: NIA, Rm 137
A Swarm of Wind-Driven Mars Rovers: Adaptive Exploration and Assembly
Kenneth Zick, University of Michigan
We present an architecture for an autonomous swarm of wind-driven Mars Tumbleweed rovers. Rover mobility arises from shifting environmental forces and a Stop/Go control mechanism; neither a steering capability nor a means of propulsion is required. The swarm implements a hybrid agent architecture which allows the rovers to adapt to local wind regularities and communicate over a mesh network. Despite the limited motion control, the swarm is capable of collective exploration of unknown terrain while balancing cohesion, dispersion, and spatio-temporal coverage. The swarm architecture allows assembly of ad hoc teams at sites of interest; each assembly includes a complete set of instruments for collective analysis. A method of dynamically selecting behavioral roles allows improved opportunities for team assembly. The swarm exhibits robustness to individual failures of mobility and/or communications. We will demonstrate our simulation model and present preliminary results.
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