California State University, Northridge mechanical engineering professor Nhut Ho, founding director of the NASA Autonomy Research Center for STEAHM (ARCS), has been awarded a $538,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to collaborate on the “Human Swarming Teaming Platform for Research in Human Automation Trust and Reliance” project.
The project involves developing swarms of fully autonomous robots capable of planetary exploration, and has terrestrial applications in such areas as search and rescue, mining and AI/Autonomy in extreme environments.
“For this particular project, we are exploring how to build a swarm of robots that can be put into different unknown environments and learn to navigate these environments to complete tasks,” Ho said. “In order to accomplish this, the autonomous robots will be designed to mimic the behavior seen in insects that swarm, such as ants. Read more ...