Search results

Michael Rubenstein, Bo Cimino, Radhika Nagpal, and Justin Werfel. 2015. “AERobot: An Affordable One-Robot-Per-Student System for Early Robotics Education.” In Intl. Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). (pdf)
Lucian Cucu, Michael Rubenstein, and Radhika Nagpal. 2015. “Towards Self-assembled Structures with Mobile Climbing Robots.” In Intl. Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). (pdf)
Kirstin Petersen, Paul Bardunias, Nils Napp, Justin Werfel, Radhika Nagpal, and J. Scott Turner. 2015. “Arrestant property of recently manipulated soil on Macrotermes michaelseni as determined through visual tracking and automatic labeling of individual termite behaviors.” Behavioural Processes, 116, Pp. 8-11. Publisher's Version
Johnathan Budd. 2015. “Seaturtle: A low-cost underwater Robot.” ES100 Senior Capstone Project. (pdf)
Alex Cornejo, Anna Dornhaus, Nancy Lynch, and Radhika Nagpal. 2014. “Task Allocation in Ant Colonies.” In Intl. Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC). (pdf)Abstract
In this paper we propose a mathematical model for studying the phenomenon of division of labor in ant colonies. Inside this model we investigate how simple task allocation mechanisms can be used to achieve an optimal division of labor. We believe the proposed model captures the essential biological features of division of labor in ant colonies and is general enough to study a variety of different task allocation mechanisms. Within this model we propose a distributed randomized algorithm for task allocation that imposes only minimal requirements on the ants; it uses a constant amount of memory and relies solely on a primitive binary feedback function to sense the current labor allocation. We show that with high probability the proposed algorithm converges to a near-optimal division of labor in time which is proportional to the logarithm of the colony size.
Kirstin Petersen. 2014. “Collective Construction by Termite-Inspired Robots.” Doctoral Thesis, Harvard University. (pdf)
Lucian Cucu. 2014. “Towards Self-Assembled Structures with Mobile Climbing Robots.” Master's Thesis, EPFL. (pdf)
Michael Rubenstein, Alejandro Cornejo, and Radhika Nagpal. 2014. “Programmable self-assembly in a thousand-robot swarm.” Science, 345, 6198.Abstract
Self-assembly enables nature to build complex forms, from multicellular organisms to complex animal structures such as flocks of birds, through the interaction of vast numbers of limited and unreliable individuals. Creating this ability in engineered systems poses challenges in the design of both algorithms and physical systems that can operate at such scales. We report a system that demonstrates programmable self-assembly of complex two-dimensional shapes with a thousand-robot swarm. This was enabled by creating autonomous robots designed to operate in large groups and to cooperate through local interactions and by developing a collective algorithm for shape formation that is highly robust to the variability and error characteristic of large-scale decentralized systems. This work advances the aim of creating artificial swarms with the capabilities of natural ones.
PDF - Supplement and Movies - Science Top10 Breakthroughs
Alex Cornejo and Radhika Nagpal. 2014. “Distributed Range-Based Relative Localization of Robot Swarms.” In Intl. Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR). (pdf)
Richard Moore, Karthik Dantu, Geoffery Barrows, and Radhika Nagpal. 2014. “Autonomous MAV guidance with a lightweight omnidirectional vision sensor.” In IEEE Intl. Conf on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). (pdf)

Pages