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| THE CENTIBOTS PROJECT |
The Centibots are a team of 100 autonomous robots
(97 ActivMedia Amigobot and 6 ActivMedia Pioneer 2 AT). The goal of
the project is to demonstrate by December 2004, 100 robots mapping,
tracking, guarding in a coherent fashion during a period of 24
hours.
The members of this project are:
The
Centibots project, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency (DARPA), is aimed at developing new technology to support the
coordinated deployment of as many as 100 robots for missions such as
urban surveillance. A first team of mapping robots (Pioneers with
laser range finders) surveyed an area while building and sharing a
distributed map. They were followed by a second wave of tracking
robots (Amigobots) that configured themselves to efficiently search
for an object of interest within that area, sensed and tracked
intruders, and shared information among themselves and with a
command center. The robots are autonomous and independent of any
network infrastructure, carrying and deploying their own
communication network (using SRI's patent-pending TBRPF technology).
Robots communicate with each other to coordinate their effort. If
one robot fails, another takes over its task.
The goal of this
project is to advance the state of the art in distributed robotics.
The development is structured to exploit existing research solutions
that are fairly robust (self-localization, path planning) and then
identifying and exploring areas where research is still needed but
where solutions are being developed and refined (map construction,
multirobot concurrent mapping) as well as areas where significant
research is needed (human and robot interaction, team formation).
Research areas in which this project is expected to develop
innovative solutions include ·A collaborative, multilevel
architecture, adaptive to new tasks and team organization and
scalable to very large teams ·Distributed map building and
deployment of robots ·Large-scale, fault-tolerant communication
(TBRPF), robot team interface, monitoring, and interaction with
humans Once a team of robots can be sent into an unknown building,
build a map in real time, and deploy itself to search the building,
practical applications abound. The robots could be sent into areas
that are not safe for humans (collapsed or earthquake-damaged
buildings, chemical-spill sites, burning buildings,
terrorist-occupied structures) or areas where humans could not see
anything (smoke-filled buildings) but where robot sensors could.
Wherever they were deployed, the robots could build maps and search
for people needing to be rescued. | |
Created by
Rety Web
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