Scalable human-robot interactions in active sensor networks

Abstract

Decentralized sensor networks promise virtually unlimited scalability and can tolerate individual component failures. An experimental active sensor network that leverages environment-centric modes of human-robot interaction can keep up with a network's arbitrary growth. Spatially distributed sensors provide better coverage, faster response to dynamically changing environments, better survivability, and robustness to failure. Taking an extra step to a decentralized system provides further benefits of scalability, modularity, and performance. Our active sensor network is a collection of sensing platforms connected into a network. Some or all of the network components have actuators that we can control, making them, in this sense, active. A mobile robot with onboard sensors and a communication facility is an example of an active component. We investigate the scalability of an important aspect of an ASN: interaction with human operations.