Dean F. Hougen

Enlisting rangers and scouts for reconnaissance and surveillance

Reconnaissance and surveillance are important activities for both military and civilian organizations, for hostage and survivor rescue, drug raids, response to chemical or toxic waste spills etc. We have developed a distributed heterogeneous robotic team that is based mainly on a miniature robotic system. Because some operations require covert action, most of the robots are extremely small. This also allows them to be easily transported and allows for a greater number to be brought into use for a single operation. This makes them expendable without jeopardizing the overall mission. We call these small robots scouts. Their individual components must all be exceedingly small, and their overall design must make maximum use of all available space. They must make efficient use of resources (e.g., batteries). We meet these challenges with an innovative design and creative use of additional support. We team the scouts with larger ranger robots, which can transport the scouts over distances of several kilometers, deploy them rapidly over a large area, coordinate their behavior, and collect and present the resulting data. We present the scouts and rangers, discuss their capabilities along with the associated software, and describe demonstrations conducted to test the innovative aspects of the system. We also discuss related work, analyze our results, and draw conclusions.

A robot team for surveillance tasks: Design and architecture

Abstract Reduced cost of robotic hardware enables the use of teams of robots instead of a single device. Multi-robot approaches promise faster results and more robust systems as each individual robot becomes dispensable. Given higher numbers of robots, writing dependable control software becomes more complex and thus more expensive. Consequently, a software architecture that is readily applied to new missions becomes essential. In the following, an architecture for distributed control of a team of heterogeneous mobile robots is introduced. Design as well as implementation details are presented. A distinguishing feature of the architecture is its versatility in handling resources. An example application for a surveillance task is discussed.

Autonomous Mobile Robots and Distributed Exploratory Missions

This paper presents our design philosophy for robotic teams involved in distributed exploratory missions, such as military reconnaissance, scientific exploration, and security patrols. It outlines the fundamental requirements of these mission types, finds commonalities among them, analyzes the roles robots can play, and notes research areas requiring greater attention.

Rapid unsupervised connectionist learning for backing a robot with two trailers

This paper presents an application of a connectionist control-learning system designed for use on an autonomous mini-robot. This system was formerly shown to form useful two-dimensional mappings rapidly when applied to backing a car with a single trailer. In the current paper the learning system is extended to three dimensions and applied to a similar but significantly more difficult problem. The system is shown to be capable of rapid unsupervised learning of output responses in temporal domains through the use of eligibility traces and inter-neural cooperation within topologically defined neighborhoods.

Effects of limited bandwidth communications channels on the control of multiple robots

We describe a distributed software system for controlling a group of miniature robots using a very low capacity communication system. Space and power limitations on the miniature robots drastically restrict the capacity of the communication system and require sharing bandwidth and other resources among the robots. We have developed a process management/scheduling system that dynamically assigns resources to each robot in an attempt to maximize the utilization of the available resources while still maintaining a priori behavior priorities. We describe a surveillance task in which the robots patrol an area and watch for motion, and present experimental results.

System architecture for versatile autonomous and teleoperated control of multiple miniature robots

Using robots for surveillance and reconnaissance applications requires a versatile connection between the human operator and robotic hardware. Some application domains require a fully teleoperated system while others may benefit by giving robots more autonomy. This paper describes a robotic control architecture which merges both paradigms. The whole scheme is implemented using the miniature Scout robot and involves a suite of user interfaces that can be tailored to specific surveillance and reconnaissance missions. Hardware capabilities are presented and a visual servoing strategy, important for semi-autonomous Scout operation, is discussed.

Mental Models and Creative Problem-Solving: The Relationship of Objective and Subjective Model Attributes

Knowledge, or expertise, has been held to contribute to creative problem-solving. In this effort, the relationship of one form of knowledge, mental models, to creative problem-solving was assessed. Undergraduates were asked to solve either a marketing or an education problem calling for creative thought. Prior to generating solutions to these problems, the mental models used by undergraduates to understand problems in these domains were assessed in terms of their objective and subjective features. It was found that both objective and subjective features of peoples mental models were related to the quality, originality, and elegance of problem solutions. The implications of these findings for understanding the role of mental models in creative problem-solving are discussed.

Swarm intelligence for cooperation of bio-nano robots using quorum sensing

Bio-nano robots are nano-scaled robots made from biological components like proteins and DNA structures. Their nano-scaled size, ready availability (in nature), and high efficiency make them perfect tools for diagnosis and therapeutic treatments in nano-medicine. Due to their nano-scaled size, the intelligence of each individual nano robot is small when compared to that of the collection of nano robots acting together to accomplish the given task. This group intelligence, called swarm intelligence, helps the nano robots do their task more effectively, more quickly, and with fewer other resources. The coordination to accomplish the given task can be achieved by these nano robots through quorum sensing. Quorum sensing is the ability of nano robots to communicate and coordinate behavior via signaling molecules. The whole scenario of communication and coordination can be done using these nano-scaled robots and the results are studied using simulation at a high level of abstraction

A Genetic Algorithm Approach for Doing Misuse Detection in Audit Trail Files

This paper focuses on the development of an intrusion detection system based on genetic algorithms. We present and justify a fitness function independent of variable parameters that addresses the problem of false positives. This fitness function is a generic one that can be used for either off-line or online intrusion detection systems or it allows us consider pseudo intrusions, which could be used to prevent the occurrence of actual intrusions. The paper also describes extending the system to account for the fact that intrusions may be mutually exclusive and defines the union operator which greatly speeds the search for intrusions

Fast connectionist learning for trailer backing using a real robot

This paper presents the application of a connectionist control-learning system to an autonomous mini-robot. The systems design is severely constrained by the computing power and memory available on board the mini-robot and the on-board training time is greatly limited by the short life of the battery. The system is capable of rapid unsupervised learning of output responses in temporal domains through the use of eligibility traces and data sharing within topologically defined neighborhoods.