UTS RI Talk by Prof. Trung Dung Ngo

A Kangaroo-inspired Large-scale Swarm of Mobile Robots as the First Responder in Emergency

Abstract:

It is very risky for firefighters to search and rescue victims in fire-damaged buildings. The risks can be minimized if they know what is happening inside the building prior to carrying out their mission with the old-fashioned technology that they have used for the last 50 years.

A Kangaroo-inspired large-scale multi-robot system consisting of a mothership and child robots will serve as a team of first responders in emergency. The heterogeneous swarm can be rapidly deployed and dispersed for exploration, coverage, and victim identification and a “life-path” generated by an ad-hoc network of mobile robots is maintained during rescue operation. I will present the hierarchical distributed control strategy consisting of distributed node control for connectivity maintenance and distributed connectivity control for connectivity minimization and global network integrity. Finally, I will demonstrate the viability of the concept of homogeneous and heterogenous swarm of mobile robots through simulation and real-world experiments.

Kangaroo and Joey
A Kangaroo-inspired Large-scale Swarm of Mobile Robots as the First Responder in Emergency

Biography:  Dr. Ngo is currently a Full Professor at Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering, University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI) where he is the founder and director of the More-Than-One Robotics laboratory (www.morelab.org) and the lead researcher of the Centre for Excellence in Robotics and Industrial Automation. Dr. Ngo received Ph.D. degree in Robotics, Aalborg University in 2008, M.Sc. degree in Robotics, the Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute, University of Southern Denmark in 2004, and B.Sc. degree from Vietnam National University in 2000. His research interests include multi-robot systems, modular robotics, and human-robot cooperation. He is the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed papers and the sole editor of two edited books. He received research awards including the best video presentation award and the finalist for his publications. Dr. Ngo has supervised over 50 postdoctoral and graduate students. He was the recipient of the UPEI Faculty Association’s Merit Award for Scholarly Achievement in 2020. Dr. Ngo is a Senior Member of IEEE and a Professional Engineer registered at EngineersPEI, Canada.

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UTS acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation, the Bidiagal people and the Gamaygal people, upon whose ancestral lands our university stands. We would also like to pay respect to the Elders both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.