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A robot team that reacts and moves in formation much
like a school of fish or a flock of geese while reconnoitering dangerous
environments such as mine fields, forest fires or disaster sites soon will
be possible, thanks to the research of OSU's Dr. Rafael Fierro. Fierro, assistant professor of electrical engineering, says computer speed and memory no longer limit the development of intelligent robotic systems. Today's advances in information technology, sensors, networking and control technology are turning what was once merely science fiction into reality. On a project called cooperative control of autonomous vehicles, Fierro and his students are using modified radio-controlled monster-truck chassis doubling as "mobile sensors" to design a coordination strategy that would allow a team of robots to navigate in formation. "The idea is to develop teams of robots that may access places where people or other machines can't go," Fierro says. "A fleet of these robots equipped with vision, heat, flame and chemical sensors could explore and document an environment very efficiently." In addition to communicating between themselves to maintain formation, the mobile sensors could exchange information with a coordinating computer that also records the information retrieved from the area. "The challenge is not only to develop the techniques to control them, but also to manage the network they compose in which so much information has to be processed in real-time."
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