Coordinated Movement with mobile ad hoc networks

In emergency situations, communication infrastructure may fail. Rally points are often used to reconvene when such failures occur. Mobile ad hoc network technology changes the nature of rally points. Those connecting can move toward an agreed-on location – and stop when they come into radio contact with those who are already connected to the rally point. We have analyzed through simulation the patterns that occur, and have created a decision aid that will predict how long it will take for large teams of responders to respond. In our current research, we are building higher fidelity radio models and testing alternative heuristics on a variety of starting distributions. We are also examining how multiple rally points might be used in conjunction with communicating couriers.

Publications

Nickerson, J.V. "A Concept of Communication Distance and its Application to Six Situations in Mobile Environments, "IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing. (4:5), Sept-Oct 2005, pp.409-419.

Nickerson, J. V. Reconvening After an Emergency, WITS 2006.

Nickerson, J.V. and Olariu, S. "Courier Assignment in Social Networks", Proceedings of the 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2007

Meng, Y., Gan, J., Nickerson, J. V. "Multi-robot Aggregation Strategies with Limited Communication", IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems 2006

Meng, Y., Nickerson, J. V., Gan, J. "Hierarchical Multi-robot Coordination: Aggregation Strategies using Hybrid Communication", 3rd International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics, 2006

Stolkin, R., and Nickerson, J.V. "Combining multiple autonomous mobile sensor behaviors using local clustering," MILCOM, 2005.

Kamakaris, T., and Nickerson, J.V. "Connectivity Maps: Measurements and applications," Proceedings of the 38th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2005.

Nickerson, J.V., and Skiena, S.S. "Attention and Communication: Decision Scenarios for Teleoperating Robots," Proceedings of 38th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2005.

Nickerson, Jeffrey V. (2004) Robots and Humans Reconvening, IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, October.

Nickerson, Jeffrey V. (2004) Rally Point Animations