Maria João Oliveira

Design of Communication and Control for Swarms of Aquatic Surface Drones

The availability of relatively capable and inexpensive hardware components has made it feasible to consider large-scale systems of autonomous aquatic drones for maritime tasks. In this paper, we present the CORATAM and HANCAD projects, which focus on the fundamental challenges related to communication and control in swarms of aquatic drones. We argue for: (i) the adoption of a heterogeneous approach to communication in which a small subset of the drones have long-range communication capabilities while the majority carry only short-range communication hardware, and (ii) the use of decentralized control to facilitate inherent robustness and scalability. A heterogeneous communication system and decentralized control allow for the average drone to be kept relatively simple and therefore inexpensive. To assess the proposed methodology, we are currently building 25 prototype drones from off-the-shelf components. We present the current hardware designs and discuss the results of simulation-based experiments involving swarms of up to 1,000 aquatic drones that successfully patrolled a 20 km-long strip for 24 hours.

Sustainable Technologies and Transdisciplinary Futures: From Collaborative Design to Digital Fabrication

Abstract This paper argues for hands-on, contextual and problem-solving collaborations, that is, for a transdisciplinary approach that establishes direct connections between social and technical disciplines. It is based on our experience as a team of researchers at the Vitruvius Fab Lab (Digital Fabrication Laboratory) of ISCTE-IUL (University Institute of Lisbon, Portugal). The paper presents a particular research and learning initiative–STTF2013 Summer School ‘Sustainable Technologies and Transdisciplinary Futures: From Collaborative Design to Digital Fabrication’, which served as a testbed for our transdisciplinary, critical and open approach. We address its rationale and main challenges, while also discussing recommendations for other transdisciplinary projects striving to integrate social and technical disciplines in research and innovation.