Researchers at the University of Southampton are investigating how to coordinate swarms of up to 100 autonomous vehicles that can work with a limited number of human operators.
Electronics and Computer Science’s Professor Sarvapali Ramchurn and Dr Danesh Tarapore are identifying the challenges posed by Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms automating robot swarms in a novel Pilot Project funded by The Alan Turing Institute.
The AI experts are working with industry partners at Thales and Dstl to shape the future of the technology’s design to enable swarms to have flexible autonomy in dynamic and uncertain environments.
Aerial, ground and underwater drones are being increasingly used in areas such as emergency response, ocean floor surveying, and product delivery, with operations currently relying on a human operator controlling one vehicle at a time.
In the coming years, it is anticipated that robots will need to be deployed in large numbers and with fewer operators to make the best use of their capabilities. Teams of operators might also collaborate to deploy their robots simultaneously for different objectives, such as fire and rescue services and non-governmental organisations responding to a natural disaster.Read more…
