IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Networked Robots

This is my master thesis, and it is a module under the EU sponsored
reconfigurable modular robotics research project called SYMBRION [www.symbrion.eu]. The project was developed at the IPR [Institute for Process control and Robotics], Universität Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany. The main goal of the SYMBRION project is to develop robots that are capable of operating as a large swarm of robots
as well as building large organisms, by connecting individual robots together, for investigating and developing
novel principles of evolution and adaptation for symbiotic organisms.

http://pacman.elstonj.com

Based on the classic video game, Roomba Pac-Man was built in a quick three weeks by myself, Jack Elston, and Cory Dixon.

Our technical committee now has a group on LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=2444696
All members of our community are welcome to join.

Although Networked Robots were formally represented in only two sessions at the recent IROS conference in St. Louis, a large body of work in the conference (more than 45 papers) related more or less strongly to our field. This is a non-comprehensive overview over larger thrusts, new directions and novel ideas presented at the conference.

According to the National Weather Service, 438 fatalities, close to
3000 injuries, and $11.2 billion in damages were incurred due to severe
weather in the United States in 2003. These losses could be
dramatically reduced with effective advanced prediction and warning
systems. Tornadoes are especially violent members of the severe storm family and thus the study of tornado formation and evolution is a
public safety necessity. There was an immediate improvement in tornado
warning capabilities with the introduction of Doppler radar. However,

How to enable a robot to efficiently detect an enemy sensor network? This project develops algorithms and systems that enable a robot equipped with a directional radio antenna to detect transient and anonymous radio sources. The problem is difficult because the robot cannot treat the radio sources as continuous radio beacons due to unknown number of radio sources, signal source anonymity, short transmission durations, and dynamic/intermittent transmission patterns.

CONE (standards for collaborative observation of natural environments) team announce the CONE-Welder site for the networked robots community. We combine standard techniques of field biology with a new class of telerobotic "observatories" to intensively study relevant bird species at Welder Wildlife Foundation in South Texas. We construct a feeding station and capture and color-band birds for individual recognition. We will apply standard techniques such as color-marking, nest location, and specimen collection.

A team of fire-fighting robots has been unveiled by defence contractor QinetiQ at a demonstration in London.The display showcased a quartet of robots aimed at tackling the particular risk of fires involving cylinders of the industrial gas acetylene.
Check out this article for a video and more on the firefighting robots.

Some sensor network applications (e.g. habitat monitoring) require collecting data from sensors sparsely deployed over a large area. In these scenarios, robots can act as data mules and gather the data from the sensors. We have been working on such systems for a few years now. Here are some highlights: