NECTAR: NEtworked Cooperative Teams of Autonomous Robots

Principal Investigator

Eng. Filippo Arrichiello Università degli Studi di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica e dell'Informazione via G. Di Biasio, 43 03043 Cassino (FR),ITALY

E:  f.arrichiello-at-unicas-dot-it P:  +39 (0776) 2993391 F:  +39 (0776) 2993707 U:  http://webuser.unicas.it/arrichiello/

Abstract
The NECTAR project is aimed at coordinating the research activity of two research Units of the Italian Community of Control Engineering (from the University of Cassino and the University of Roma Tre) on control issues for networked robotic systems.
In particular, the NECTAR project wants to investigate and develop innovative techniques for the control of networked and cooperative robotic systems, i.e., teams of autonomous vehicles that, in order to achieve a common goal, cooperate by exchanging information via a wireless communication.
The project activities will be focused on the development of motion control techniques for a team of mobile robots that has to carry out coordinated missions both in an environment lacking of a communication infrastructure (or sensor network) and in an environment where these infrastructure are available. In the first case, motion control techniques that allow the robots to achieve coordinated missions while preserving the established connectivity will be investigated. In the second case, techniques to integrate the team of robots with an infrastructure providing communication or additional sensor information will be analyzed and developed.
The strategies developed during the project will be implemented and tested by exploiting the experimental setups already available at the Research Units and/or by using the equipment that will be expressly bought for the project purposes. In particular, the multi-robot team available at the Laboratory of Industrial Automation of the University of Cassino and the multi-robot team along with the sensor network available at the Robotics and Sensor Fusion Laboratory of the University of Roma Tre will be used.

Project Duration: 2010-2014

Keywords

• Multi-robot systems
• Networked Robots
• Coordinated motion control
• Sensor and Communication Networks

Research Units

Università degli Studi di Cassino (UNICAS) Research unit leader: Eng. Filippo Arrichiello (Personal URL) Laboratorio di Automazione Industriale (LAI)

Università degli Studi "Roma Tre" (UNIROMA3) Research unit leader: Eng. Andrea Gasparri (Personal URL) Laboratorio di Robotica e Fusione Sensoriale (LRFS)