IEEE Robotics and Automation Society
                     Central New England Chapter

                       Tuesday, April 13, 2004
                     Informal Discussion: 6:00 PM
                           Program: 6:30 PM

                  Swarms are the Future of Robotics

                             Presented by

                            Jennifer Smith
                          Software Engineer
                          iRobot Corporation

ABSTRACT

The iRobot Swarm of 120 small robots was designed from the ground up
for developing distributed algorithms for large numbers of individual
robots.  Such algorithms need to be robust in the face of complex
environments, and need to be tolerant to the failure or addition of
any number of individuals.  Our algorithms are designed to be
completely scaleable, to function with groups of 10 or groups of
10,000.  Our robot support and user interface systems have also been
designed to be scaleable, allowing a single person to maintain,
operate and understand the state of the entire swarm.

The talk will include a discussion of our behavior library, a detailed
example of a swarm algorithm, and results of recent experiments at
Fort AP Hill and at iRobot.  The talk will be followed by a
demonstration of a portion of the Swarm in action.

iRobot Corporation was founded in the early 1990's by three pioneers
from MIT - Colin Angle, Helen Greiner and Rod Brooks.  Today iRobot is
developing robots for consumer, industrial, and military markets and
is among the world's leading robotics R&D labs.  iRobot engineers have
created such successes as Roomba. Robotic Floor Vac (currently the
world market leader in robotic floor vacs) and PackBot (the rugged,
man transportable military robot in current field use by ground troops
in Iraq and Afghanistan), and the work continues. iRobot is dedicated
to creating realistic robotic solutions to real world problems. Our
robots are not far-future science fiction, but robots for the real
world. Whether cleaning a floor, investigating an ancient marvel or
keeping our soldiers safe in the field, iRobot develops practical,
reliable, and innovative products that effectively answer users' needs
with creative engineering and design.

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY

Jennifer Smith received her Master's degree from the Media Lab at MIT
in 2000, where she developed an embodied conversational agent that
encourages and records grandparents' stories.

Prior to that, she received a Bachelor's in Psychology and Philosophy
from Queen's University and a Diploma in Engineering from Dalhousie
University, both in Canada.

Ms. Smith joined iRobot in 2000, where she got to make toys in the
Interactive Toy Division.  Today, she gets to play with dozens of
robots at a time as a software engineer on the Swarm research project.

MEETING INFORMATION

The IEEE Robotics and Automation Society will meet on Tuesday, April
13, 2004 at Wellesley High School at 6:00 PM for informal discussions
and for the formal presentation between 6:30 and 7:30 PM. The group
will have a no-host dinner afterwards at Bertucci's, where more
conversations can take place with the guest speaker. The meetings are
open to the general public, and all are welcome at the dinner
afterwards.

For more information, contact Rich Maynard at 978-439-5511 x6221 or
send email to info@robotics-boston.org

DIRECTIONS

From Route 128, take either Route 9 or Route 16 west. >From the
junction of Routes 9 and 16, follow Route 16 (Washington Street) west
past the Wellesley Hills commuter rail station (within walking
distance of the school, then turn left onto Rice Street. Wellesley
High School is on the left. Parking is available in a lot just beyond
the school.

For a web map showing the location of Wellesley High School, go to the
Yahoo map site at http://maps.yahoo.com/ and enter the following
information in the indicated locations:

    Address: 50 Rice St
    City, State or ZIP: Wellesley, MA

The star marker is misplaced slightly to the south. Imagine it about 1
cm toward the top of the map at Rice St.

For more information about our Section and Chapter, visit our web site
at our URL: http://www.robotics-boston.org/