###Cooperative Planning and Control for Intelligent Multi-Robot Systems
Project ID: 2228bd1139 (You will need this ID for your application)
Research Theme: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics
UCL Lead department: Computer Science
Lead Supervisor: Junyan Hu
Project Summary:
Swarm robotics deals with the design, construction, and deployment of large groups of intelligent robots (e.g., vehicles, drones, etc.) that cooperatively achieve a common objective. When properly designed, a multi-robot system connected by a communication network can offer flexibility, reconfigurability, robustness to faults, and cost-effectiveness over a single sophisticated robot in solving complex and challenging tasks. Although the field has provided a wealth of point solutions, generalizable methods for system integration and transition to practice remain challenging.
The primary objective of this PhD project is to develop advanced multi-robot coordination strategies based on machine learning, network theory and cooperative control techniques. Distributed path planning and control algorithms will be designed for networked autonomous robots, where only local information is used in each robot to achieve cooperation. The proposed results will be validated by hardware experiments using a swarm of wheeled mobile robots and unmanned aerial vehicles in dynamic environments. Some real-world applications, such as autonomous vehicle navigation, cooperative exploration and mapping, search and rescue, etc., will be further explored.
During the PhD programme, you will mainly work with Dr. Junyan Hu (with expertise in swarm intelligence and multi-agent systems) and Prof. Alex Li (with expertise in robotic learning and dynamical systems). You will also be supported by a number of postdocs and technicians in your supervisor’s research group.
The candidate should have (or close to obtaining) a Master degree in Computer Science, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, or a related field, with at least an upper second-class honours degree (2:1 or equivalent qualification). They should also have strong interests and backgrounds in robotics, artificial intelligence, control systems, and mechatronics.