Rapidly evolving sensor, effector and processing technologies, including micromechanical fabrication techniques, will soon make possible the development of very inexpensive autonomous mobile devices with adequate processing but fairly limited sensor capabilities. One goal which has been proposed is to employ large numbers (more than 100) of these simple robots to achieve real-world military mission goals in the ground, air, and underwater environments, using sensor-based reactive planners to realize desired emergent collective group behaviors. One key prerequisite to realizing this goal is the capability to command and control the system of robots in terms of meaningful mission-oriented system-level parameters. A commander requires an understanding of a system's capabilities, doctrine for employing it, and measures of effectiveness to assess its performance once deployed. It is thus necessary to relate system (ensemble) functionality and performance to the behaviors realized by the individual autonomous elements. This paper describes a program of analysis, modeling, algorithm development, and simulation which has been undertaken to develop, refine, and validate this basic approach to real-world problem solving. The initial thrust has been to develop generic behaviors, such as blanket, barrier, and sweep coverage, and various deployment and recovery modes, which can address a broad spectrum of generic applications such as mine deployment, minesweeping, surveillance, sentry duty, maintenance inspection, ship hull cleaning, and communications relaying. Initial simulation results are presented.

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A lifetime of digital memories is possible but raises many social, as well as technological, questions

The Mobile Detection Assessment and Response System robotic security program has successfully demonstrated simultaneous control of multiple robots navigating autonomously within an operational warehouse environment. This real-world warehouse installation required adapting a navigational paradigm designed for highly structured environments such as office corridors (with smooth walls and regularly spaced doorways) to a semistructured warehouse environment (with no exposed walls and within which odd-shaped objects unpredictably move about from day to day). A number of challenges, some expected and others unexpected, were encountered during the transfer of the system first to a beta-test/demonstration site and then to an operational warehouse. This paper examines these problems (and others previously encountered) in a historical context of the evolution of navigation and other needed technologies, and the transition of these technologies from the research lab to an operational warehouse environment. A key lesson is that system robustness can only be ensured by exhaustively exercising the system's operational capabilities in a number of diverse environments. This approach helps to uncover latent system hardware deficiencies and software implementation errors not manifested in the initial system hardware or initial development environment, and to identify sensor modes or processing algorithms tuned too tightly to the specific characteristics of the initial development environment.