Postdoctoral Research in Distributed Robotics

Dartmouth College, Hanover NH

Investigators

Abstract

0202789 Rus, Daniela Dartmouth College CISE Postdoctoral Associates in Experimental Computer Science: Postdoctoral Research in Distributed Robotics This proposed research is intended to create more versatile robots by using self-configuration: the autonomous organization and reorganization of large numbers of modular robots into geometric structures. Structures of such robots would be well-suited to a variety of situations where environmental models (e.g., terrain, hazards) and task specifications (e.g., sensing, manipulation) are uncertain. To create autonomous robotic systems of this nature, the fundamental goal of this research is to develop a science-base for modular self-reconfiguring systems. The postdoctoral research associate will explore new ideas on distributed planning and control and focus on general rather than architecture-specific algorithms. The plan is to use existing designs and robot systems to demonstrate the applicability of such algorithms to locomotion and simple manipulation tasks.