Prof. Lou Rossi and Prof. Chien-Chung Shen from Computer and Information Sciences have recently been awarded a Network Science and Engineering grant from the National Science Foundation to study underwater swarming problem. Social animals (such as packs of wolves, flocks of birds, and schools of fish) that travel in groups often rely on social interactions among group members to make collective movement decisions. In contrast, the integration of advanced computation, wireless communications, and control technologies has facilitated the creation of swarms of wirelessly networked autonomous vehicles (WNAVs), including swarms of aerial,land, or underwater autonomous vehicles, which are envisioned to carry out critical civilian as well asmilitary tasks. Many of the issues unique to autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), including low or irregular communication quality and low quality localization information, remain unresolved because of the current high cost of underwater vehicles. However, if underwater vehicles are following the same trendas ground and aerial vehicles, we can expect that AUVs will be ubiquitous in the next decade so effective coordination of AUV swarms is a critical emerging technology that needs to be developed.

Profs. Rossi and Shen have been working together for the last two years on the analysis and design of swarm algorithms for mobile and static communication networks, and have successfully bridged the gap between realistic network features and simplified mathematical models that identify key dynamical features. The aim of this project is to gain a deep understanding of biologically inspired algorithms in noisy environments through mathematical analysis and detailed network simulations. In this project, Profs. Rossi and Shen focus on the design, rigorous analysis and validation of bio-inspired algorithms to control AUV swarms. As case studies for this project, Profs. Rossi and Shen will explore leadership in swarms, swarming in background flows and level set detection, but the mathematical methodology and underlying design principles are generally applicable to a wide class of problems. The $440,000 grant will support an interdisciplinary team consisting of Profs. Rossi and Shen with graduate students from both Mathematical Sciences, and Computer and Information Sciences for the next three years.

Article created: September 2, 2009