Related papers: Frontier Shepherding: A Bio-inspired Multi-robot F…
This article presents a novel and flexible multitask multilayer Bayesian mapping framework with readily extendable attribute layers. The proposed framework goes beyond modern metric-semantic maps to provide even richer environmental…
Exploring and navigating in extreme environments, such as caves, oceans, and planetary bodies, are often too hazardous for humans, and as such, robots are possible surrogates. These robots are met with significant locomotion challenges that…
This paper presents a self-contained system for the robust utilization of aerial robots in the autonomous exploration of cave environments to help human explorers, first responders, and speleologists. The proposed system is generally…
Multi-robot target tracking finds extensive applications in different scenarios, such as environmental surveillance and wildfire management, which require the robustness of the practical deployment of multi-robot systems in uncertain and…
A number of coordinated behaviors have been proposed for achieving specific tasks for multi-robot systems. However, since most applications require more than one such behavior, one needs to be able to compose together sequences of behaviors…
The ability to efficiently and effectively explore planetary surfaces is currently limited by the capability of wheeled rovers to traverse challenging terrains, and by pre-programmed data acquisition plans with limited in-situ flexibility.…
Autonomous exploration of unknown environments is a vital function for robots and has applications in a wide variety of scenarios. Our focus primarily lies in its application for the task of efficient coverage of unknown environments.…
The growing ambition for space exploration demands robust autonomous systems that can operate in unstructured environments under extreme extraterrestrial conditions. The adoption of robot learning in this domain is severely hindered by the…
Drawing inspiration from flight behavior in biological settings (e.g. territorial battles in dragonflies, and flocking in starlings), this paper demonstrates two strategies for coverage and flocking. Using earlier theoretical studies on…
Swarm robotic search is concerned with searching targets in unknown environments (e.g., for search and rescue or hazard localization), using a large number of collaborating simple mobile robots. In such applications, decentralized swarm…
Autonomous robots are increasingly deployed for long-term information-gathering tasks, which pose two key challenges: planning informative trajectories in environments that evolve across space and time, and ensuring persistent operation…
In post-disaster scenarios, efficient search and rescue operations involve collaborative efforts between robots and humans. Existing planning approaches focus on specific aspects but overlook crucial elements like information gathering,…
We investigate how a shepherd should move to effectively herd a flock towards a target. Using an agent-based (ABM) and a coarse-grained (ODE) model for the flock, we pose and solve for the optimal strategy of a shepherd that must keep the…
Collaborative navigation of heterogeneous robots in unknown environments poses significant challenges due to sensing, communication, and computational limitations. In this work, a lead robot navigates toward a target while a mobile sensor…
Exploration is a critical challenge in robotics, centered on understanding unknown environments. In this work, we focus on robots exploring structured indoor environments which are often predictable and composed of repeating patterns. Most…
Multi-robot collaboration has become a needed component in unknown environment exploration due to its ability to accomplish various challenging situations. Potential-field-based methods are widely used for autonomous exploration because of…
Quadrupedal robots resemble the physical ability of legged animals to walk through unstructured terrains. However, designing a controller for quadrupedal robots poses a significant challenge due to their functional complexity and requires…
Legged robots can sense terrain through force interactions during locomotion, offering more reliable traversability estimates than remote sensing and serving as scouts for guiding wheeled rovers in challenging environments. However, even…
Robots are becoming increasingly essential for traversing complex environments such as disaster areas, extraterrestrial terrains, and marine environments. Yet, their potential is often limited by mobility and adaptability constraints. In…
Path planning for robotic exploration is challenging, requiring reasoning over unknown spaces and anticipating future observations. Efficient exploration requires selecting budget-constrained paths that maximize information gain. Despite…