MRI: Development of a Mobile Robot Instrument Cluster

本项目探索移动机器人集群的协同导航和任务导向控制，开发了一个功能强大、灵活、可维护的测试平台。该系统能够开发新颖、稳健、高精度的多机器人能力的实验演示，集成替代子系统级创新并支持其比较验证的能力，扩展多个工程部门的研究生访问试验台的能力，以及将试验台纳入各种教育课程/项目和外展/展览活动。基础设施由同质的、分布式的、移动的工具组成，这些工具利用实时协作来提高任务的成本效益和/或启用全新的功能。为了支持系统资源的快速重构和适当实验数据的记录，该项目开发了一个灵活的架构，集成了所获得的硬件组件。该系统的能力支持多机器人系统的设计和控制研究，用于从分布式原位/遥感到分布式物体操纵/运输的各种应用。该系统的灵活性允许探索集中/分散控制和通信，本地或远程人在回路与自动控制，绝对与相对传感等方面的创新。

This project, exploring the coordinated navigation and task-oriented control of a cluster of mobile robots, develops a capable, flexible, and maintainable testbed. This system enables the Development of an experimental demonstration of novel, robust, & high-precision multi-robot capabilities, Ability to integrate alternate subsystem-level innovations and to support their comparative validation, Expansion of testbed access to graduate students from several engineering departments, and Inclusion of the testbed in a variety of educational classes/projects and outreach/exhibition activities.The infrastructure consists of homogeneous, distributed, mobile instruments that exploit real-time cooperation in order to improve the cost-effectiveness of tasks and/or to enable entirely new capabilities. In order to support the rapid reconfiguration of system resources and the logging of appropriate experimental data, the project develops a flexible architecture integrated with acquired hardware components. The capabilities of the system supports research in the design and control of multi-robot systems for diverse applications ranging from distributed in situ/remote sensing to distributed object manipulation/transportation. The flexible nature of the system allows exploring innovations in centralized/decentralized control and communication, local or remote human-in-the loop vs. automated control, absolute vs. relative sensing, etc.