Category: Research

An NSF REU Proposal on Human-Swarm Interaction

by Yu Gu, posted in Research, Robotics, Students, Uncategorized

I am sharing a REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) proposal. When I first started writing this proposal, along with my colleagues Dr. Gross and Dr. Klink, we had no idea where to start. I searched the internet and found a couple sample REU proposals. Several friends also kindly shared their successful proposals. Now, it’s my turn to give back!

The project is about human-swarm interaction: how can one person effectively manage a 50-robot swarm in achieving a high-level goal? In the project, the undergraduate students need to design the robots, the test environment, a simulator, human-machine interfaces, along with swarm control algorithms. They would also perform a variety of experiments to demonstrate these capabilities.

During the first year (2019) program, eight undergraduate students from around the country worked together with several WVU students for 10 weeks. They designed and built 50 robots (!) and developed the basic swarm control software. Here is a video:

Here is a paper written by the students. One major difference between our REU Site and most other REU programs is that all students were working together on a same project. They had to work as a team (I called them a swarm…) to achieve the overall project goal.

This year (2020), however, we had to cancel the program due to COVID. We will be back in motion again next year!

The proposal received a C (Competitive) from the NSF review panel. The individual reviewer ratings were VG/G, VG, VG, VG/G (VG – very good, G – good). In general, the reviewers were excited about the project research ideas, but had concerns about our detailed program designs. Of course, we were very inexperienced in this area at the time.

Attachment: REU Proposal

So, What Do We Do with It?

by Yu Gu, posted in Astronomy, Photography, Research, Robotics, Uncategorized

I am more of a telescope collector than a sky watcher. I have about a dozen telescopes of different designs: achromatic, apochromatic, doublet refractors, triplets, Newtonians, Maksutov-Cassegrain, Maksutov Newtonian, H-alpha solar scope, Dobsonian mounts, German equatorial mounts, roof prism binoculars, porro prism binoculars… you name it. I know way more about telescope designs than constellations of the sky or features on Mars. Most of my telescopes spend years collecting photons in a very dark place: my closet.

I am more of a camera lover than a photophile. I have several cameras from the film era to the mirrorless age. I have a couple dozen lenses with focal lengths ranging from 14mm-500mm, not counting telescopes.

I have learned to accept this. There is nothing wrong with being obsessed with equipment, I told myself, the hobby is supposed to be fun!

I also like robots. My lab, IRL, has about two dozen robots, plus a 50-robot swarm. The UAV lab I worked in before had about a dozen UAVs. Most (but not all) of these robots and UAVs were custom developed. I, as someone who always like toys, had a hand in the design of most of these systems.

So now, what happens when we have all the hardware we ever wanted? Of course, we can only get close, but not there. There is a pretty big difference between “wants” and “needs”, and we often rationalize “wants” as “needs”. As engineers and perfectionists, seeing small issues with the current setup makes us feel itching. We are constantly dreaming up next design iterations. We are telling ourselves better robots will make our research better.

Is that true? Do we really need more/better robots to do better research? Maybe to some degree. If we don’t have the appropriate tools, we can’t do certain experiments. If we don’t have high quality equipment, some work may be very hard to do (e.g., mapping without 3D Lidar or robotic pollination without a precision manipulator). I think another important reason for having the best robots, like having the best telescopes/cameras, is that we have no one else but ourselves to blame for the underperformance…

So, let me ask again, what happens when we have all the hardware we ever wanted? What do we do with it? The answer is simple: let’s focus on research. Instead of rushing to start on the next generation design and letting the existing robots collect dusts, let’s make them do things nobody else can dream of or believe!