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UNM ECE PhD Student Nicola Bezzo to Present at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

March 30, 2012

Nicola Bezzo, PhD student in the UNM Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, will present his recent research on coordination of autonomous robotic systems to the Robotics Section of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory on April 12.  A leader in robotic exploration of the solar system, JPL developed the Mars Rovers deployed in Mars for autonomous exploration.

Today, robotics is getting very popular for several applications such as search and rescue missions, surveillance, and disaster relief operations. In these scenarios where multiple agents are employed, it is important to consider an optimal and smart coordination of
the robotic system to properly cover, sense, and manipulate an area, minimize power usage, avoid collisions, and exchange information over the network.

The title of Bezzo’s talk is, “Exploiting Heterogeneity in Wireless Robotic Networks.” He will show his work on heterogenous systems in which different types of agents (aerial and ground robots) cooperate to achieve a unison mission goal. He will also show an intelligent aerial transportation system in which quadrotors (helicopters with 4 propellers) deploy and recover small ground robots to explore the environment, while maintaining the robotic network connected.