University of Alabama Participation of EPSCOR Institution in SSR-RC: QOS service metrics for unmanned surveillance

University Of Alabama Tuscaloosa, Tuscaloosa AL

Investigators

Abstract

PROGRAM DIRECTOR'S RECOMMEMNDATION IIP 0934373 University of Alabama (Outreach Project) Anderson The PI proposes to cooperate with an existing I/UCRC, the Cooperative Research Center for Safety, Security and Rescue Research (SSR-RC) at the University of Minnesota, for research and outreach activities at the University of Alabama. Specifically, as the Director of Distributed Robotics Lab, the PI proposes to investigate a unified platform that will enable inputs from a human via an Android-based graphical controller to coordinate and control a team of cooperative UAVs. The intellectual merit of the proposal involves the development of an algorithm for real time development of optimal quality of service solutions based upon the robot's current state and goal. If the algorithm is cooperative it would also enable multi-robot collaboration. The proposal seeks to advance this research issue through extensive physics-based simulation. The broadest area of impact of this proposed work is the likely advances in multi-robot cooperation research, which will have clear benefits to society in disaster situations where time is of the essence. In addition, the plan that all development will be in standard languages using open source libraries and off-the-shelf operating systems increases the likelihood that others will be able to build from this work. The proposal also presents plans for actively recruiting minority and female students in the PI's laboratory. The proposed research will arguably promote collaboration between the PI's institution and several military centers.