RI: Small: Swarms That 'Hear The Shape of a Drum'

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This proposal identifies a pathway to distributed pattern recognition through parallelization of a particular contour identification algorithm and decentralized data collection using formations of robots. Such a system recognizes patterns in the data it collects autonomously. Anticipated applications range from homeland security, to emergency response, scientific exploration and environmental monitoring. Traditional mobile sensor networks are based on an architecture in which some minimal signal processing is performed on the sensing nodes, while the bulk of information is directed to a network sink for processing and interpretation. The hypothesis here is that the same communication infrastructure that enables motion coordination in formation of robots can be exploited for distributed processing of sensor data and autonomous pattern recognition without human intervention. Thus, information is interpreted in a distributed fashion and without dependence on the capabilities of specialized individual nodes. This method brings forward a robust and autonomous system which can inherently tolerate node and network failures and exhibits collective intelligence in the form of group associative memory. Technical challenges to be overcome are the development of decentralized and provably convergent cooperative motion control designs which can enable targeted data collection, and the scalable implementation of a pattern recognition algorithm based on Dirichle Laplacians along with its integration with spatially distributed Hopfield neural networks. The complete system will be demonstrated by an experimental test-bed with mobile robots capable of recognizing noisy, variable shapes on the laboratory floor. Outreach activities will include undergraduate research and summer programs for secondary school teachers.