Invited Talk I Actuator Nets: Folding, Reconfiguring and Deploying Sensors

Abstract

What happens when sensors can move around or otherwise change their geometry? When all sensors can move (a robot swarm), we would like to be able to determine and manipulate high-level properties, such as the boundary of the swarm or the connectivity of the communication network. When only a few sensors can move, we would like the mobile sensors to be able to deploy immobile sensors to improve or repair the network connectivity or coverage. When the sensors are attached to a connected substrate, and they can manipulate the substrate, we would like to be able to reconfigure the substrate into arbitrary shapes. I will describe several algorithmic projects to address all of these problems.