Smart console for managing robot swarm experiments

The goal of this project is to design and implement an interactive tool for monitoring, debugging and controlling a robot swarm during experiments. Through the interface of this tool, the user can pause the experiment and select a robot to check the values of sensors and actuators and modify them if needed. From the architectural point of view This tool: i) will be integrated in ARGoS (the simulator developed in IRIDIA) through the existing debug tools featured by ARGoS that currently work only in simulation. ii) will use the tracking system along with the virtual sensors/actuators framework. iii) will integrate a preexisting console tool to monitor and control the state of the robots.

Requirements: Good knowledge of C++

Working language: English

Contact: Lorenzo Garattoni and Mauro Birattari

ROS for e-puck: simulation and robotic platform

The e-puck is a small differential wheeled mobile robot. It was originally designed for education by Michael Bonani and Francesco Mondada at at EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland). ROS (Robot Operating System) is a programming framework that provides libraries and tools for developing robot applications.

At IRIDIA, we develop control software for the e-puck platform using ARGoS: an efficient, modular, multi-physics, and extensible state-of-the-art simulator and development environment for large-scale robot swarms.

The goal of this project is to port ROS in the development environment that we use for the e-puck platform. The starting point for this project is the Yocto Project, whose goal is to port ROS to the Gumstix COM, the Linux-powered "computers-on-module" that is installed on our e-pucks.

Requirements: Good knowledge of C++ and a lot of motivations to work with a robot simulator and with real hardware

Working language: English

Contact: Gianpiero Francesca, Antoine Ligot, and Mauro Birattari

Python and/or Lua control framework for e-puck and TAM

In swarm robotics, robots act following simple rules and local information only. From the robot-robot and robot-environment interactions, a swarm-level behaviour emerges. The focus in swarm robotics is on the group dynamics and decision processes, and not on the specific way in which tasks are performed. A device called TAM (Task Abstraction Module), completely developed at IRIDIA, allows researchers to study a large variety of tasks and interrelationships by abstracting from the parts of the problem that are not relevant. The TAM greatly extend the range of experiments that can be performed with the e-puck robot, a small differential wheeled mobile robot that was originally designed for education by Michael Bonani and Francesco Mondada at at EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland). Currently the control software for the TAM is written in Java and the one of the e-puck in C++. Both for the TAM and the e-puck, the same control software can be used with the real hardware and in the ARGoS simulator, which is the simulator used at IRIDIA for performing simulation in swarm robotics. The goal of this project is to develop a framework to allow researchers to implement control software for the TAM and the e-puck using Python and/or Lua. By doing so, the TAMs will be completely integrated in ARGoS, enabling the use of the TAMs in software environments in which Java cannot be used.

Requirements: Good knowledge of C++, Java, Python, and possibly Lua

Working language: English

Contact: Ken Hasselmann, Mauro Birattari, and Frédéric Robert