Abstract:  Research conducted over the last decade within the Mobile Robot Laboratory at Georgia Tech has centered on many important issues involving multi-robot teams.  In this talk, we broadly review a range of research results: from the role of communication in multiagent robotic systems; to multiagent mission specification tools for building complex robot missions using a graphical user interface validated by usability studies; to formation control for small teams of robots including results demonstrated on two HMMWVs; to team teleautonomy where an operator can interface smoothly at varying levels of autonomy with a large number of robotic agents. These results are currently being applied within three different ongoing DARPA programs that serve as feeder programs for the DARPA/Army Future Combat System (FCS) effort.

Biography:  Ronald C. Arkin received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst after which he joined the College of Computing at  the Georgia Institute of Technology. He holds the rank of Professor and is the Director of the Mobile Robot Laboratory.  Dr. Arkin's research interests include behavior-based control and  action-oriented perception for mobile robots and unmanned aerial vehicles, hybrid deliberative/reactive software architectures, robot survivability, multiagent robotic systems, biorobotics, human-robot interaction, and learning in autonomous systems. Prof. Arkin has written a textbook entitled Behavior-based Robotics and co-edited a book entitled Robot Colonies. Funding sources have included NSF, DARPA, U.S. Army, Savannah River Technology Center, Honda, Draper Labs, SAIC, and ONR. Dr. Arkin serves/served on the Editorial Boards of IEEE Intelligent Systems, Environmentally Conscious Manufacturing, Autonomous Robots, Machine  Intelligence and Robotic Control, and Applied Intelligence. He is the Series Editor for the MIT Press book series Intelligent Robotics and  Autonomous Agents.  He also is a consultant for several major companies in the area of intelligent robotic systems. Prof. Arkin currently serves on the Administrative Committee of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and on the National Science Foundation's Robotics Council.