Interaction Lab

excursion

Introduction

Most of my current research involves developing means of comparison, analysis, and design of multi-agent systems that exhibit what might be called "emergent" behavior.

The object of analysis of much of this research is a system of "minimal" agents - robots which use only physical contact sensing - that is able to perform tasks what are globally position dependent by forming chains.

Here is a preliminary QuickTime video of chain formation and foraging.

Here are some selected works (most in progress):

A long page with information on the "mechanics" of the robot chains: Holding Hands: Solving Position-Dependent Problems with Multi-Agent Chains;

An abstract of a paper more oriented towards the information-invariants approach to analysis of multi-agent systems: Barry Brian Werger and Maja J Mataric, "Robotic "Food" Chains: Externalization of State and Program for Minimal-Agent Foraging" in Proceedings, From Animals to Animats 4, Fourth International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behavior (SAB-96).