Heterogeneous operating in dynamic and unstructured environments

This research opportunity through the Army Research Laboratory Research Associateship Program (ARL-RAP) develops computational methods that enable robots to perceive and understand their environment; move, see, orient and collaborate in complex missions with limited human intervention. As the focus is on robots that can be applied to the Army domain, of particular interest are highly efficient, robust, and agile methods that exhibit excellent properties with limited computational power, storage, and bandwidth. The program is designed to significantly increase the involvement of creative and highly trained scientists and engineers from academia and industry in scientific and technical areas of interest and relevance to the Army. Research opportunities exist in areas including robust perimeter defense systems, robotic autonomy in mixed-initiative operations, collaboration of heterogeneous robot teams in communications-limited environments, autonomous navigation at operational tempo, multi-robot object tracking, GPS-denied localization, reasoning over semantic concepts, and decision-making algorithms for human-robot collaborative tasks. The Army Research Laboratory's Army Research Directorate (ARD) focuses on exploiting concept development, discovery, technology development, and transition of the most promising disruptive science and technology to deliver fundamentally advantageous science-based capabilities. The Science of Intelligence Systems (SIS) division explores foundational concepts and builds cumulative capabilities to simultaneously address multiple axes of complexity for future Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS) operational concepts. Selected participants will work under ARL advisors Carlos Nieto and Jeffrey Twigg, conducting research in robotics, autonomous systems, computer vision, artificial intelligence, and related fields. Fellows will contribute to advancing Army capabilities in robotic systems operating in complex, dynamic, and unstructured environments.