Multirobot Teaming in Adversarial Environments

Abstract: A technological revolution driven by the falling price and increasing performance of hardware has allowed us to envision large scale, complex tasks to be solved by teams of robots. However, even though the barrier to designing autonomous systems have dropped dramatically, there still exist various challenges in realizing swarms of robots that work collaboratively in real world applications. This talk will highlight my research on algorithm design towards enabling robots and autonomous vehicles to perform large scale teaming operations. To explore teaming behaviors, we study adversarial scenarios that induce coordination and cooperation among a group of agents. Specifically in this talk, I will discuss scenarios that involve intruders that must be pursued and intercepted, which are relevant to various civilian and military security applications. In designing control algorithms, I introduce a multi-disciplinary approach using tools from dynamics and control, game theory, graph theory, combinatorial optimization, and inspirations from biological systems.

Bio: Daigo Shishika is an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He obtained his bachelor’s degree from the University of Tokyo, Japan, and his master’s and PhD from the University of Maryland, College Park, all in Aerospace Engineering. Before joining George Mason University, Daigo was a postdoctoral researcher in the GRASP Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania. His research interest is in the general area of autonomy, dynamics and controls, and robotics.