100-strong swarm of autonomous robots can be controlled by one person

A ‘swarm’ of over 100 autonomous ground and aerial robots can be supervised by one person without subjecting that individual to an undue workload, researchers have concluded.

Photo by Karl Maasdam

The findings from the research, with input from Oregon State University (OSU), are said to represent an advance toward efficiently and economically using swarms in roles including wildland firefighting, package delivery, and disaster response in urban environments. The team’s findings have been published in Field Robotics.

“We don’t see a lot of delivery drones yet in the United States, but there are companies that have been deploying them in other countries,” Julie A Adams of the OSU College of Engineering said in a statement. “It makes business sense to deploy delivery drones at a scale, but it will require a single person be responsible for very large numbers of these drones. I’m not saying our work is a final solution that shows everything is OK, but it is the first step toward getting additional data that would facilitate that kind of a system.”

The results stem from the US Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA)’s OFFSET (Offensive Swarm-Enabled Tactics ) program. The organisation said the program foresees small-unit infantry using swarms comprising upwards of 250 unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) and/or unmanned ground systems (UGSs) ‘to accomplish diverse missions in complex urban environments’.

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