Publications de James Pugh | EPFL Graph Search

The e-puck, a Robot Designed for Education in Engineering

Francesco Mondada, Jean-Christophe Zufferey, Alcherio Martinoli, Dario Floreano, Stéphane Magnenat, Michael Bonani, Xavier Raemy, Christopher Cianci, James Pugh, Adam Klaptocz

Mobile robots have the potential to become the ideal tool to teach a broad range of engineering disciplines. Indeed, mobile robots are getting increasingly complex and accessible. They embed elements from diverse ﬁelds such as mechanics, digital electronic ...

IPCB: Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco2009

A Fast On-Board Relative Positioning Module for Multi-Robot Systems

Alcherio Martinoli, Xavier Raemy, James Pugh, Riccardo Falconi, Cédric Favre

We present an on-board robotic module which can determine relative positions among miniature robots. The module uses high-frequency modulated infrared emissions to enable nearby robots to determine the range, bearing, and message of the sender with a rapid ...

2009

Distributed Scalable Multi-Robot Learning using Particle Swarm Optimization

Alcherio Martinoli, James Pugh

Designing effective behavioral controllers for mobile robots can be difficult and tedious; this process can be circumvented by using online learning techniques which allow robots to generate their own controllers online in an automated fash- ion. In multi- ...

2009

Synthesis, modeling, and experimental validation of distributed robotic search

James Pugh

The work of this thesis centers around the research subject of distributed robotic search. Within the field of distributed robotic systems, a task of particular interest is attempting to locate one or more targets in a possibly unknown environment. While n ...

EPFL2008

The Collective Memory of Amnesic Processes

Rachid Guerraoui, Bastian Pochon, Ron Levy, James Pugh

This paper considers the problem of robustly emulating a shared atomic memory over a distributed message passing system where processes can fail by crashing and possibly recover. We revisit the notion of atomicity in the crash-recovery context and introduc ...

2008

Exploration of an Incremental Suite of Microscopic Models for Acoustic Event Monitoring Using a Robotic Sensor Network

Alcherio Martinoli, Christopher Cianci, James Pugh

Simulation is frequently used in the study of multi-agent systems. Unfortunately, in many cases, it is not necessarily clear how faithfully the details of the simulated model represent the behavior of the physical system. Often, the effects of the environm ...

IEEE2008

Distributed Adaptation in Multi-Robot Search using Particle Swarm Optimization

Alcherio Martinoli, James Pugh

We present an adaptive strategy for a group of robots engaged in the localization of multiple targets. The robotic search algorithm is inspired by chemotaxis behavior in bacteria, and the algorithmic parameters are updated using a distributed implementatio ...

2008

Communication in a Swarm of Miniature Robots: The e-Puck as an Educational Tool for Swarm Robotics

Alcherio Martinoli, Xavier Raemy, Christopher Cianci, James Pugh

Swarm intelligence, and swarm robotics in particular, are reaching a point where leveraging the potential of communication within an artificial systempromises to uncover newand varied directions for interesting research without compromising the key propert ...

2007

Parallel Learning in Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Swarms

Alcherio Martinoli, James Pugh

Designing effective behavioral controllers for mobile robots can be difficult and tedious; this process can be circumvented by using unsupervised learning techniques which allow robots to evolve their own controllers in an automated fashion. In multi-robot ...

2007

The Cost of Reality: Effects of Real-World Factors on Multi-Robot Search

Alcherio Martinoli, James Pugh

Designing algorithms for multi-robot systems can be a complex and difficult process: the cost of such systems can be very high, collecting experimental data can be time consuming, and individual robots may malfunction, invalidating experiments. These const ...

2007

Toward Multi-Level Modeling of Robotic Sensor Networks: A Case Study in Acoustic Event Monitoring

Alcherio Martinoli, Thomas Lochmatter, Christopher Cianci, James Pugh

Modeling and simulation can be powerful tools for analyzing multi-agent systems, such as networked robotic systems and sensor networks. In this paper, it is shown concretely how instances of both these elements fit into a general methodology for multi-leve ...

2007

Inspiring and Modeling Multi-Robot Search with Particle Swarm Optimization

Alcherio Martinoli, James Pugh

Within the field of multi-robot systems, multi-robot search is one area which is currently receiving a lot of research attention. One major challenge within this area is to design effective algorithms that allow a team of robots to work together to find th ...

2007

Multi-Robot Learning with Particle Swarm Optimization

Alcherio Martinoli, James Pugh

We apply an adapted version of Particle Swarm Optimization to distributed unsupervised robotic learning in groups of robots with only local information. The performance of the learning technique for a simple task is compared across robot groups of various ...

2006

Discrete Multi-Valued Particle Swarm Optimization

Alcherio Martinoli, James Pugh

Discrete optimization is a difficult task common to many different areas in modern research. This type of optimization refers to problems where solution elements can assume one of several discrete values. The most basic form of discrete optimization is bin ...

2006

Applying Aspects of Multi-Robot Search to Particle Swarm Optimization

Alcherio Martinoli, Loïc Segapelli, James Pugh

We present a modified version of the Particle swarm Optimization algorithm in which we adjust the virtual swarm search by incorporating inter-agent dynamics native to multi-robot search scenarios. The neighborhood structure of PSO is modified to accurately ...

2006

Small-Scale Robot Formation Movement Using a Simple On-Board Relative Positioning System

Alcherio Martinoli, James Pugh

We explore the problem of smallscale multirobot formation control using only an unsophisticated onboard relative positioning module. The robotic setup and module are implemented and tested in a realistic virtual simulator, using standard formation types an ...

2006

Relative Localization and Communication Module for Small-Scale Multi-Robot Systems

Alcherio Martinoli, James Pugh

We characterize and improve an existing infrared relative localization/communication module used to find range and bearing between robots in small-scale multi-robot systems. Modifications to the algorithms of the original system are suggested which offer b ...

2006

Particle swarm optimization for unsupervised robotic learning

Alcherio Martinoli, James Pugh

We explore using particle swarm optimization on problems with noisy performance evaluation, focusing on unsupervised robotic learning. We adapt a technique of overcoming noise used in genetic algorithms for use with particle swarm optimization, and evaluat ...

2005