Sponsored by

		     Central New England Chapters
				of the
		 IEEE Robotics and Automation Society
				 and
			IEEE Computer Society

			       and the
			Greater Boston Chapter
				of the
		 Association for Computing Machinery


			 Tuesday, May 9, 2006

			Presentation: 6:00 PM
		      Robotics Lab Tour: 7:00 PM


			SELF-ORGANIZING ROBOTS


			     Presented by

			  Prof. Daniela Rus

		Massachusetts Institute of Technology
   Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL)
		    The Stata Center, Building 32
		32 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA 02139
			Phone: (617) 258-7567
		      E-mail: rus@csail.mit.edu
		   http://people.csail.mit.edu/rus

ABSTRACT

We wish to create versatile robots by using self-reconfiguration: 
hundreds of small modules autonomously organize and reorganize as 
geometric structures to best fit the terrain on which the robot has 
to move, the shape of the object the robot has to manipulate, or the 
sensing needs for the given task. Self-reconfiguration allows large 
collections of small robots to actively organize as the most optimal 
geometric structure to perform useful coordinated work.

A self-reconfiguring robot consists of a set of identical modules 
that can dynamically and autonomously reconfigure in a variety of 
shapes, to best fit the terrain, environment, and task. 
Self-reconfiguration leads to versatile robots that can support 
multiple modalities of locomotion and manipulation. 
Self-reconfiguring robots constitute large-scale distributed systems. 
Because the modules change their location continuously they also 
constitute ad-hoc networks.

This talk will discuss the challenges of creating self-reconfiguring 
robots, ranging from designing hardware capable of 
self-reconfiguration to developing distributed controllers and 
planners for such systems that are scalable, adaptive, and support 
real-time behavior.


SPEAKER'S BIOGRAPHY

Daniela Rus is an associate professor in the EECS Department at MIT. 
She is the co-director of the CSAIL Center for Robotics. Previously, 
she was a professor in the computer science department at Dartmouth 
College. She holds a PhD degree in computer science form Cornell 
University. Her research interests include distributed robotics, 
mobile computing, and self-organization. She was the recipient of an 
NSF Career award. She is a Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow and a 
class of 2002 MacArthur Fellow.


MEETING INFORMATION AND DIRECTIONS

The Central New England Chapters of IEEE Robotics and Automation 
Society and IEEE Computer Society, and the Greater Boston Chapter of 
the Association for Computing Machinery will meet at the MIT Stata 
Center, Building 32, 32 Vassar St. in Cambridge, MA 02139 (corner of 
Vassar St. and Main St.), at Kiva seminar room (32-G449), on Tuesday, 
May 9, 2006, for the presentation at 6:00 PM and a tour of the MIT 
CSAIL Robotics Lab at 7:00 PM. Kiva room is located on the 4th floor 
of the Stata Center, take any of the 3 elevators on the Gates Tower 
side of the building and turn toward your right when exiting the 
elevator.)

Afterwards, at approx. 7:45 PM, the group will have a no-host dinner 
at Legal Sea Foods Kendall Square, 5 Cambridge Ctr, Cambridge, MA 
02142, where more conversations can take place. The meetings are open 
to the general public, and all are welcome at the dinner afterwards.

For more information on IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, contact 
Peter Meyer at 781-334-0052 or chair@robotics-boston.org or visit 
http://www.robotics-boston.org/ For more information on IEEE Computer 
Society, contact Peter Mager at 781-890-2084 or p.mager@computer.org