Woodcraft for Scouts and Others

Inductive Databases and Knowledge Scouts

Project Summary Objectives of this research are to develop, implement, and test a methodology for building inductive databases, which extend conventional databases by integrating inductive inference capabilities. These capabilities allow a database to answer queries that require synthesizing plausible knowledge. Such knowledge is not directly or deductively obtainable from the database, but can...

Rotorcraft as Mars Scouts

A new approach for the robotic exploration of Mars is detailed in this paper: the use of small, ultralightweight, autonomous rotary-wing aerial platforms. Missions based on robotic rotorcraft could make excellent candidates for NASA Mars Scout program. The paper details the work to date and future planning required for the development of such ‘Mars rotorcraft.’

A Theoretical Framework for Estimating Swarm Success Probability Using Scouts

This paper presents a novel theoretical framework for swarms of agents. Before deploying a swarm for a task, it is advantageous to predict whether a desired percentage of the swarm will succeed. The authors present a framework that uses a small group of expendable “scout” agents to predict the success probability of the entire swarm, thereby preventing many agent losses. The scouts apply one of...

The Scouts Have It Right-BE PREPARED!

Reactive Model-based Programming of Mobile Scouts

There is a growing desire in many scientific and exploration communities to use cheap, small, autonomous vehicles to perform information gathering tasks. As the number of vehicles used for information gathering tasks increases from a single large, capable, often remotely operated vehicle to a collection of smaller, more specialized, autonomous vehicles, so too does the complexity of the plannin...