Project description
Insect-inspired robots are tomorrow’s construction workers
Ants use teamwork to transport food to their nests and termites work together to build towering mounds. The collective intelligence of these social insects has caught the attention of computer scientists and engineers who are keen to build robotic systems with similar building behaviours. Swarm robotics is a field of robotics where scientists aim to understand and to implement this collective intelligence on a group of robots. The EU-funded SRoCS project will investigate how swarm robotics can be applied to construction. The project will use a combination of simulation and hardware to experimentally determine the extent to which the building behaviour of social insects can be realised in a swarm of self-organising robots.
Objective
This proposal details an investigation into the development of control software for swarms of robots tasked with building structures. The behavior of the individual robots in this work will be fully autonomous and will be based on the nest building behavior of social insects. It is of interest to investigate whether the building behavior of social insects can be transferred to and implemented in a swarm of robots since the social insect behavior has been shown to be parallel, robust, and scalable.
I outline in this proposal the second milestone of my ambitious research project that I have devised to investigate how swarm robotics can be applied to construction. I completed the first milestone of this research project during my doctoral studies, where I implemented and validated a swarm robotics construction system using both hardware and simulation.
I have organized the second milestone of my research project into four work packages. In these work packages, I will develop, implement, and validate control software for a swarm of robots, which must perform a construction task. These work packages use a combination of the simulation and hardware tools that I developed during my doctoral studies to efficiently and accurately answer a number of open research questions. I have designed these work packages to be completed at IRIDIA where I have access to world-class facilities such as a computer cluster with more than 1000 CPUs for running simulations and a state-of-the-art arena and tracking setup for running hardware experiments.
I believe that by undertaking the second milestone of this project at IRIDIA under the supervision of Prof. Marco Dorigo, I will be able to successfully establish myself as an independent researcher.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences computer and information sciences software
- natural sciences biological sciences zoology entomology
- engineering and technology electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering electronic engineering robotics swarm robotics
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
MAIN PROGRAMME
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H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
MSCA-IF-EF-ST - Standard EF
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2018
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
1050 Bruxelles / Brussel
Belgium
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.