Dissertation Defenses

Doctoral Dissertation Announcement

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Candidate: Hanyi Dai

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Electrical and Computer Engineering

Title: Design of Adaptive Collective Foraging in Swarm Robotic System

Committee:
Dr. Frank Severance, Chair
Dr. Gerald L. Sievers
Dr. Liang Dong

Date: Tuesday, March 16, 2010 1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, B-211

Abstract:
Inspired by the collective behavior observed in biology insect colonies, Swarm Robotics is a new approach to design a distributed control algorithm in order to coordinate a large group of relatively simple robots performing a required group task. This dissertation dedicates the research on designing local foraging behavior of an individual robot so that optimized collective foraging behavior can be achieved at robot group level.
The research starts with designing a computer simulation program to simulate a group of homogeneous robot collective foraging activity. Motivated by widely observed division of labor phenomenon in biological system, a set of local rules have been designed for individual robots to adapt the probability of active foraging. At group level, division of labor between foraging and resting is emerged. As result of this group behavior, robot group shows an optimized group foraging performance as well as robustness and flexibility to dynamic environment changes.
The study then extended to the study of a group of heterogeneous robots collective foraging in a different environment with two types of food available in the food source. The adaptation rules were upgraded for individual robots foraging in this environment. At group level, task allocation of foraging each type of food as well as division of labor between foraging and resting robots is emerged. Robot group shows an optimized group foraging performance as well as robustness and flexibility to dynamic environment changes.