Theory and applications of cooperative navigation

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Mobile equipment capable of autonomous operation is of particular relevance in remote, harsh, uncertain, and dynamic environments where human presence is either not possible, hindered in some way, or highly undesirable (e.g., on other planets, undersea, in underground mines). A key ingredient of vehicle autonomy is "navigation"; that is, the ability of a mobile robot to estimate its pose with respect to its environment, which is difficult in such GPS-deprived environments. The essence of this grant application is born from a realization that there exists a significant and largely unexplored opportunity in the combination of ideas from the emerging field of cooperative control with real problems in vehicle navigation. The applicant proposes to study the problems of designing and applying local interactions among multiple vehicles to enhance a group's navigational abilities as compared with vehicles that work only individually.