Energy efficient large scale multi-robot systems

在足够大的规模下，能源供应的物流将主导任何机器人系统的实用性。因此，提高能源的供应和使用效率可能会对机器人完成的任务的规模和性质产生重大影响。为了探索这个想法，我提议研究维护完整的移动机器人系统的方法，这些系统的人口最高可达100,000--比该领域的典型人口多三个数量级。实验领域是自主移动机器人觅食和运输：这是许多现实世界应用的模型。需要研究的关键问题是(I)如何有效地将能量分配给单个机器人；以及(Ii)机器人如何有效地利用其存储的能量。

The logistics of energy supply will dominate the practicality of any robot system at sufficiently large scale. Therefore, improving the efficiency with which energy can be supplied and used could have a significant impact on the size and nature of tasks achieved by robots. To explore this idea, I propose to investigate methods for maintaining complete mobile robot systems with populations of up to 100,000 - three orders of magnitude larger than typical in the field. The experimental domain is autonomous mobile robot foraging and transporation: a model for many real-world applications. The key problems to be studied are (i) how to effectively distribute energy to individual robots; and (ii) how the robots can use their stored energy efficiently.