Collaborative Research: Teamwork vs. Congestion: The Role of Scale in Large Mobile Networks

该项目解决的问题，协调一些移动的代理通过无线通信网络，以实现动态变化的任务在地理上扩展的区域。例如，代理可以表示收集关于时变空间场的信息所需的移动的传感器（例如，温度曲线、化学浓度等），或移动的中继提供无线通信服务的区域感兴趣。智力优点：该项目的智力优点是一个系统的方法来设计的可扩展的，强大的，和自适应算法的一类动态的基于任务的运动协调问题的发展，具有精确的表征的闭环性能，并在计算时间和网络负载方面的实现复杂性。特别是，我们感兴趣的是研究系统的性能和复杂性特征如何随着其维度的增长而变化，无论是在代理的数量方面，还是在任务的数量方面。此外，我们将探讨如何选择的通信结构（包括网络拓扑结构，和通信协议）影响系统的performance.Broader影响：新的概念框架将允许移动的机器人网络的能力，远远超出了目前的技术提供的发展。能够在更大空间范围内收集和传播信息的可能大型移动的代理网络的存在将极大地影响我们在环境监测、行星探索、搜索和救援、监视、灾害管理和国家安全等应用领域的能力。

The project addresses the problem of coordinating a number of mobile agents through a wireless communication network, in order to achieve dynamically-changing tasks over a geographically extended region. For example, agents can represent mobile sensor required to collect information about a time-varying spatial field (e.g., temperature profiles, chemical concentration, etc.), or mobile relays providing wireless communication services over a region of interest.Intellectual Merit:The intellectual merit of this project is the development of a systematic approach to the design of scalable, robust, and adaptive algorithms for a class of dynamic task-based motion coordination problems, with a precise characterization of the closed-loop performance, and of the implementation complexity in terms of computation time and network load. In particular, we are interested in examining how the performance and complexity characteristics of the system change as its dimension grows, both in terms of the number of agents, and of the number of tasks. Furthermore, we will investigate how the choice of the communication structure (including network topology, and communication protocols) influences the system's performance.Broader Impact:The new conceptual framework will allow the development of mobile robotic networks with capabilities that are well beyond those offered by current technology. The availability of possibly large networks of mobile agents, able to collect and disseminate information over an extended volume of space will greatly impact our abilities in application areas such as environmental monitoring, planetary exploration, search and rescue, surveillance, disaster management and national security.