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arXiv · 2006.06081

Ergodic Specifications for Flexible Swarm Control: From User Commands to Persistent Adaptation

Ahalya Prabhakar·Ian Abraham·Annalisa Taylor·Millicent Schlafly·Katarina Popovic·Giovani Diniz·Brendan Teich·Borislava Simidchieva·Shane Clark·Todd Murphey
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Abstract

This paper presents a formulation for swarm control and high-level task planning that is dynamically responsive to user commands and adaptable to environmental changes. We design an end-to-end pipeline from a tactile tablet interface for user commands to onboard control of robotic agents based on decentralized ergodic coverage. Our approach demonstrates reliable and dynamic control of a swarm collective through the use of ergodic specifications for planning and executing agent trajectories as well as responding to user and external inputs. We validate our approach in a virtual reality simulation environment and in real-world experiments at the DARPA OFFSET Urban Swarm Challenge FX3 field tests with a robotic swarm where user-based control of the swarm and mission-based tasks require a dynamic and flexible response to changing conditions and objectives in real-time.

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Ahalya Prabhakar, Ian Abraham, Annalisa Taylor, Millicent Schlafly, Katarina Popovic, Giovani Diniz, Brendan Teich, Borislava Simidchieva, Shane Clark, Todd Murphey. 2020-06-10. Ergodic Specifications for Flexible Swarm Control: From User Commands to Persistent Adaptation. https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.06081

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