Research

Decision Making in Unstructured Environments

Complex mission planning scenarios that arise in field robotics can involve multiple robotic agents, multiple human operators, and multiple tasks to accomplish. The high-level goal is to find an allocation of agents to tasks that is optimal in some sense (eg. minimum time, maximum probability of success, minimum risk, etc.). After allocating agents to tasks by a human, automated, or hybrid solution, lower-level controllers readily solve single-agent path planning and control problems. The end-to-end mission planning problem can be considered a hierarchical decision problem (DP) and is studied in optimization and control communities. However, several limitations of optimization and control render solving all but the most simple mission planning problems infeasible:

• Real missions may involve a variety of task types (visit, patrol, rendezvous, search, track).

• Tasks may have spatial and temporal components (rendezvous at a waypointpoint during a specific time window).

• Tasks may have time varying priority, which can change at mission runtime. Agents have various ability levels that make them more or less suited for particular tasks.

• High level human reasoning can readily trade off the marginal benefit of one configuration (allocation of tasks to agents at a particular time instance) over another. However, human reasoning is difficult if not impossible to encode in an algorithm. Humans themselves are often not able to specifically enumerate all of the thought processes behind complex decision making.

The last point is the primary motivation for taking a Reinforcement Learning (RL) approach to problems such as the one described.

Journals

• J. Karl Hedrick, Brandon Basso , Joshua Love, Benjamin M. Lavis, "Tools and Techniques for Mobile Sensor Network Control" Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control (JDSMC), 2010.
• Walter Goetz, Kristoffer Leer, Haraldur P. Gunnlaugsson, Paul Bartlett, Brandon Basso, Jim Bell, Preben Bertelsen, Charlotte S. Binau, Phillip C. Chu, S. Gorevan, Mikkel F. Hansen, Stubbe F. Hviid, Kjartan M. Kinch, Gostar Klingelhofer, Alastair Kusack, Morten B. Madsen, Douglas W. Ming, Richard V. Morris, Erik Mumm, Tom Myrick, Malte Olsen, Steven W. Squyres, Jack Wilson, and Albert Yen, "Search for magnetic minerals in Martian rocks: Overview of the Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) magnet investigation on Spirit and Opportunity," Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 113, 2008

Conferences

• [ACCEPTED] Brandon Basso, “Locally Weighted Models for Fixed-Wing Autonomous Aircraft Control,” ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Conference, 2012.
• Jared M. Garvey, Benjamin Kehoe, Brandon Basso, Mark F. Godwin, Jared Wood, Joshua Love, Shih-Yuan Liu, Zu Kim, Stephen Jackson, Yaser Fallah, Tony Fu, Raja Sengupta and J. Karl Hedrick, "An Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle System for Sensing and Tracking," AIAA Infotech@Aerospace Conference, 2011.
• Brandon Basso, Hugh Durrant-Whyte, and J. Karl Hedrick, "Mission Planning in Unstructured Environments: A Reinforcement Learning Approach," IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, 2011
  
• Brandon Basso, Benjamin Kehoe, J. Karl Hedrick, "A Multi-Level Modularized System Architecture for Mobile Robotics," Dynamics Systems and Controls Conference, 2010
  
• S. Jackson, J. Tisdale, M. Kamgarpour, B. Basso, and J. Hedrick, "Tracking controllers for small UAVs with wind disturbances: Theory and fight results," in Conference on Decision and Control, 2008
  
• J. Love, B. Basso, A. Klesh, K. Hedrick and A.R. Girard, “Control of Mobile Sensor Networks: A State-of-the-Art Review”, Plenary Session Paper, ASME Dynamic Systems and Controls Conference, 2008.

Articles

• B. McIlvride, B. Basso, "Distributed control of unmanned aerial vehicles," Online: www.cogent.com, 2009.

Projects

• Locally Weighted Models for Fixed Wing Autonomous Aircraft Control, Fall 2008
  
• Sigma Point Kalman Filtering, Spring 2007
  
• MIMO Sliding Mode Control for Multiple UAV Collaborative Guaranteed Search, Spring 2007

Thesis

Code Samples

• Matlab

• Cpp

In the News

• iPhone Controls Robot Plane Squad
  
• Berkeley Group Uses iPhone to Control UAV Squadron

Video

• 2009 Web-based tasking
  

• Summer 2008 Demonstration - Collaborative Control
  

• Summer 2007 Demonstration - Collaborative Sensing Language
  

Mars

S. Gorevan, I. Yachbes, P. Bartlett, K. Zacny, G. L. Paulsen, T. Kennedy, B. Basso, J. Wilson, "Comet and Asteroid Sample Acquisition, Containerization, and Transfer for Sample Return," Spacecraft Reconnaissance of Asteroid and Comet Interiors (RECON), 2006

B. Basso, P. Bartlett, S. Gorevan, T. Kennedy, G. Paulsen, J. Wilson, I. Yachbes, "Surface Anchoring and Deflection Concepts for Earth-Crossing Comets and Asteroids," Spacecraft Reconnaissance of Asteroid and Comet Interiors (RECON), 2006

P. Bartlett, B. Basso, A. Kusack, J. Wilson, K. Zacny, “New Rock Physical Properties Assessments From the Mars Exploration Rover Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT),” American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting, 2005