NSF East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute (EAPSI) for FY 2013 in Australia

Fine Benjamin T, College Station TX

Investigators

Abstract

This action funds Benjamin Thomas Fine of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University to conduct a research project in the Computer and Information Science and Engineering area during the summer of 2013 at the Australian Centre for Field Robotics at the University of Sydney in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The project title is "Manipulating Migratory Motions of Flocks of Birds: A Computational Exploration." The host scientist is Dr. Salah Sukkarieh. Many groups of agents, such as birds, fish, and locust, exhibit emergent collective behaviors (e.g., schooling fish and locust migratory band formation). The environment in which the agents operate is one determinant of the resulting behaviors. Using unmanned aerial vehicles to monitor the migratory motions of the swift parrot in New South Wales, Australia, this investigation attempts to identify which properties of the agents' environment influence the exhibited behaviors of the parrot flocks. The Fellow developed an approach for the generation of environments that elicit a pre-specified behavior from a given group of agents. This approach is used to explore how different environmental properties can be used to manipulate the migratory motions of the parrots. Moreover, the data collected from the field will be used to refine the geometrical theory and computational implementation, which can be used for investigating other agents and collective behaviors (e.g., migratory motions of locust bands and evacuation behaviors of pedestrians). The computational implementation developed for this investigation along with empirical data collected from the field, will allow the PI to explore the possibility of effectively manipulating collectives by altering their environment. Broader impacts of an EAPSI fellowship include providing the Fellow a first-hand research experience outside the U.S.; an introduction to the science, science policy, and scientific infrastructure of the respective location; and an orientation to the society, culture and language. These activities meet the NSF goal to educate for international collaborations early in the career of its scientists, engineers, and educators, thus ensuring a globally aware U.S. scientific workforce. Furthermore, the understanding of the environmental properties that effect group behaviors could also be applied to effective manipulation of Australian Plague Locust migratory bands, which has the potential to affect the livelihoods of one in ten people throughout the world. Moreover, this work would also be useful for applications in livestock/poultry management, the study of emergent behaviors, and assisting in improving the efficiency of building evacuations.