How to program 1000 Robots?

Swarm robotics is a branch of collective robotics that studies decentralized solutions for the problem of coordinating large groups of robots. Robot swarms are envisioned for challenging scenarios characterized by large and hazardous environments that require adaptivity, resilience, and efficiency. Despite this ambitious vision, the major achievements in this field still consist of algorithms that tackle specific problem instances, and the performance of these algorithms strongly depends upon the context in which they are developed (i.e., hardware capabilities and assumptions on the environment). Given this state of affairs, reproducing results and comparing algorithms is difficult, thus hindering the development of swarm robotics as a whole. Buzz is a novel programming language for the development of complex swarm behaviors. It offers a small, but powerful set of primitive operations that enable the specification of behaviors both in a swarm-wide fashion, and from the point of view of an individual robot. Buzz offers the promise of letting a designer program thousands of robots in a manageable way.

Bio

Giovanni Beltrame obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, in 2006 after which he worked as microelectronics engineer at the European Space Agency on a number of projects spanning from radiation-tolerant systems to computer-aided design. In 2010 he moved to Montreal, Canada where he is currently Associate Professor at Polytechnique Montreal with the Computer and Software Engineering Department. Dr. Beltrame directs the MIST Lab, with more than 30 students and postdocs under his supervision. His research interests include modeling and design of embedded systems, artificial intelligence, and robotics. He is currently on sabbatical and a visiting professor at the University of Tübingen.