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-------- Forwarded Message --------
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">Subject:
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<td>Michael Rubenstein talk, Thursday, March 19 from
2:00-3:30pm, Elings 1605</td>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">Date: </th>
<td>Fri, 13 Mar 2015 13:43:59 -0700 (PDT)</td>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">From: </th>
<td>Laura Cheung <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:laura@mat.ucsb.edu"><laura@mat.ucsb.edu></a></td>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">To: </th>
<td><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:faculty@sonic.mat.ucsb.edu">faculty@sonic.mat.ucsb.edu</a>, <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:students@sonic.mat.ucsb.edu">students@sonic.mat.ucsb.edu</a>,
MAT Staff <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:staff@mat.ucsb.edu"><staff@mat.ucsb.edu></a></td>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">CC: </th>
<td>Matthew Turk <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:mturk@cs.ucsb.edu"><mturk@cs.ucsb.edu></a>, Tobias Hollerer
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:holl@cs.ucsb.edu"><holl@cs.ucsb.edu></a>, Upamanyu Madhow
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:madhow@ece.ucsb.edu"><madhow@ece.ucsb.edu></a>, Yasamin Mostofi
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:ymostofi@ece.ucsb.edu"><ymostofi@ece.ucsb.edu></a></td>
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<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: normal; margin:
0px;" data-mce-style="text-align: justify; line-height:
normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; color:
black;" data-mce-style="font-size: 10.0pt; color: black;">Please
join us for a talk by Michael Rubenstein on Thursday,
March 19 from 2:00-3:30pm in Elings Hall 1605.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: normal; margin:
0px;" data-mce-style="text-align: justify; line-height:
normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; color:
black;" data-mce-style="font-size: 10.0pt; color: black;"><br
data-mce-bogus="1">
</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: normal; margin:
0px;" data-mce-style="text-align: justify; line-height:
normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; color:
black;" data-mce-style="font-size: 10.0pt; color: black;">Title: </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: normal; margin:
0px;" data-mce-style="text-align: justify; line-height:
normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"
data-mce-style="font-size: 10pt;"> <strong>Taming
the Swarm: Control and Design of Multi-Robot Systems.</strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: normal; margin:
0px;" data-mce-style="text-align: justify; line-height:
normal; margin: 0px;"><br>
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: normal; margin:
0px;" data-mce-style="text-align: justify; line-height:
normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; color:
black;" data-mce-style="font-size: 10.0pt; color: black;">Abstract:</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify; text-indent:
0.5in; line-height: normal;" data-mce-style="margin: 0px;
text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in; line-height:
normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"
data-mce-style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Advances in technology
have begun to allow for the production of large groups, or
swarms, of robots; however, there exists a large gap
between their current capabilities and those of swarms
found in nature or envisioned for future robot swarms.
These deficiencies are the result of two factors,
difficulties in algorithmic control of these swarms, and
limitations in hardware capabilities of the individuals.
Creating a hardware system for large robotic swarms is an
open challenge; cost and manufacturability pressure
hardware designs to be simple with minimal capabilities,
while algorithm design favors more capable hardware. The
robot design must balance these factors to create a simple
robot that is, at the same time, capable of performing the
desired behaviors. To investigate these challenges, I
created the Kilobot robot swarm, a swarm of 1024 (“kilo”)
robots. In this talk, I will discuss the many challenges
associated with creating a robot swarm at this scale and
the implications this has for creating even larger, more
capable swarms in the future.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify; line-height:
normal;" data-mce-style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;
line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"
data-mce-style="font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify; text-indent:
0.5in; line-height: normal;" data-mce-style="margin: 0px;
text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in; line-height:
normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"
data-mce-style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Controlling these
swarms is also a challenge, as the properties desired from
these systems, e.g. shape, locomotion, are generally a
global property; however, we can only control local
interactions between individuals. Furthermore, the mapping
between controllable local behaviors and desired global
results is not well understood. Their control is further
complicated by the very nature of these systems which are
composed of decentralized, distributed, asynchronous,
error-prone individuals with often limited capabilities. I
will discuss two examples of algorithms recently
implemented on the Kilobot swarm, self-assembly of
user-defined 2D shapes, and the collective transport of
objects. Both of these examples provide guarantees of
correctness and performance bounds of the swarm, and
provide examples of reliable global-to-local control over
a robot swarm. I will describe unexpected challenges faced
while trying to control the Kilobot swarm, and how these
challenges will influence the design of future swarm
algorithms.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify; line-height:
normal;" data-mce-style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;
line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; color:
black;" data-mce-style="font-size: 10.0pt; color: black;"> </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: normal; margin:
0px;" data-mce-style="text-align: justify; line-height:
normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"
data-mce-style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Biography:</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: normal; margin:
0px;" data-mce-style="text-align: justify; line-height:
normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"
data-mce-style="font-size: 10.0pt;">
Michael Rubenstein is currently a researcher in Radhika
Nagpal's Self-Organizing Systems Research Group at Harvard
University's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
There he is working on Kilobot, a robot designed for
testing swarm algorithms in a group of over a thousand
robots. He received his Ph.D. from The University of
Southern California's School of Computer Science under the
supervision of Wei-Min Shen. His thesis, titled:
"Self-Assembly and Self-Healing for Robotic Collectives<em>",
</em>details a </span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;
color: black;" data-mce-style="font-size: 10.0pt; color:
black;">control algorithm for a simple, simulated
multi-robot system which guarantees that it can
self-assemble and self-heal any desired connected shape.
Most of his research is centered around the design and
control of multi-robot systems. Additional information can
be found at his webpage: </span><span style="font-size:
10.0pt;" data-mce-style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://people.seas.harvard.edu/%7Emrubenst/"
data-mce-href="http://people.seas.harvard.edu/~mrubenst/">http://people.seas.harvard.edu/~mrubenst/</a></span></p>
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<div data-marker="__SIG_POST__">-- <br>
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<div><strong><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;
font-size: 10pt;" data-mce-style="font-family: georgia,
serif; font-size: 10pt;">Laura Cheung</span></strong><br>
<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 10pt;"
data-mce-style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size:
10pt;">Business Officer</span><br>
<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 10pt;"
data-mce-style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size:
10pt;">Media Arts & Technology</span><br>
<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 10pt;"
data-mce-style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size:
10pt;">3311 Phelps Hall</span><br>
<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 10pt;"
data-mce-style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size:
10pt;">Santa Barbara, CA 93106-6065</span><br>
<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 10pt;"
data-mce-style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size:
10pt;">Phone: 805.893.3029</span><br>
<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 10pt;"
data-mce-style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size:
10pt;">Fax: 805.893.2930</span></div>
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