Adaptive teams of autonomous aerial and ground robots for situational awareness

In this paper, we report on the integration challenges of the various component technologies developed toward the establishment of a framework for deploying an adaptive system of heterogeneous robots for urban surveillance. In our integrated experiment and demonstration, aerial robots generate maps that are used to design navigation controllers and plan missions for the team. A team of ground robots constructs a radio-signal strength map that is used as an aid for planning missions. Multiple robots establish a mobile ad hoc communication network that is aware of the radio-signal strength between nodes, and can adapt to changing conditions to maintain connectivity. Finally, the team of aerial and ground robots is able to monitor a small village, and search for and localize human targets by the color of the uniform, while ensuring that the information from the team is available to a remotely located human operator. The key component technologies and contributions include: (a) Mission specification and planning software; (b) exploration and mapping of radio-signal strengths in an urban environment; (c) programming abstractions and composition of controllers for multirobot deployment; (d) cooperative control strategies for search, identification, and localization of targets; and (e) three-dimensional mapping in an urban setting. (C) 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.