Smart Solutions Towards Cellular-Connected Unmanned Aerial Vehicles System
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Southampton
Department Name: Sch of Electronics and Computer Sci
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
Organisations
- University of Southampton (Lead Research Organisation)
- Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (DSTL) (Collaboration)
- University of Texas at Austin (Collaboration)
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) (Collaboration)
- Boeing (Collaboration)
- BAE Systems (United Kingdom) (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON (Collaboration)
- Northrop Grumman (Collaboration)
Publications
Bossens D
(2022)
Resilient Robot Teams: a Review Integrating Decentralised Control, Change-Detection, and Learning
in Current Robotics Reports
Hunt W.
(2023)
Demonstrating Performance Benefits of Human-Swarm Teaming
Parnell K
(2022)
Trustworthy UAV Relationships: Applying the Schema Action World Taxonomy to UAVs and UAV Swarm Operations
in International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction
Yazdanpanah V
(2022)
Reasoning about responsibility in autonomous systems: challenges and opportunities
in AI & SOCIETY
| Description | Automation in military operations |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Citation in other policy documents |
| URL | https://post.parliament.uk/research-briefings/post-pn-0681/ |
| Description | Connected tech: smart or sinister? A call for evidence from Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| URL | https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/connected-tech-smart-or-sinister-a-call-for-evidenc... |
| Description | Response to The future of connected and automated mobility in the UK: call for evidence |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| URL | https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/450228/ |
| Description | BAE Systems |
| Organisation | BAE Systems |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Discussions around the identification of research challenges and synergies. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Discussions around the identification of research challenges and synergies. |
| Impact | None yet. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Boeing |
| Organisation | Boeing |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Discussions around the identification of research challenges and synergies. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Discussions around the identification of research challenges and synergies. Membership of the TAS Strategic Advisory Network. |
| Impact | Identification of research challenges via the TAS Strategic Advisory Network. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Dstl |
| Organisation | Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (DSTL) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Discussions and identification of research challenges and synergies. Access to the wider TAS network and events. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Discussions and identification of research challenges and synergies. Co-chairing the TAS Skills Committee. Membership of the TAS Sector Leads Committee. Membership of the TAS Strategic Advisory Network. Participation in TAS events such as the TAS AHM 21 and Trusting Machines? Access to AIFest Project Partner: Trustworthy human-swarm partnerships in extreme environments |
| Impact | Development of TAS Skills Programme via co-chairing of the TAS Skills Committee and participation in the TAS DTN seminar series. Membership of the TAS Strategic Advisory Network. Trusting Machines? Cross sector lessons in healthcare and defence event. TAS participation in AIFest. Project:Trustworthy human-swarm partnerships in extreme environments. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Northrup Grumman |
| Organisation | Northrop Grumman |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | A number of discussions have taken place around research challenges. |
| Collaborator Contribution | A number of discussions have taken place around research challenges and a financial contribution has been offered to the TAS Hub. Membership of the TAS Strategic Advisory Network. |
| Impact | Membership of the TAS Strategic Advisory Network. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Open-Source Interaction Interface for Human-Swarm Teaming |
| Organisation | University of Southampton |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | TAS pump priming award |
| Collaborator Contribution | Motivated by RRI, this project aims at providing an open-source platform that is suitable for experimentation with a large group of semi-autonomous systems that can be monitored and controlled by a few human operators. Establishing an efficient human-machine teaming is a challenging task that can be enabled through a highly usable and efficient interaction interface. It is necessary for such an interface to be: (1) understandable: so that operators can monitor the state of the autonomous systems with minimal effort and training, (2) scalable: such that the performance of the system is not bound to any specific number of agents, (3) highly usable: so that the platform can easily be used for online experimentation, and (4) maintainable: such that researchers and developers can build upon the existing code or tailor the platform to their specific needs and domains of application. |
| Impact | None yet. |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | UK RAS |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Department | UK-RAS Network |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Discussion of research challenges and synergies. Cross-network support and promotion of events. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Discussion of research challenges and synergies. Cross-network support and promotion of events. |
| Impact | Support and involvement of both TAS and UK-RAS members in events and joint outputs. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | University of Texas @ Austin |
| Organisation | University of Texas at Austin |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Introduction of sandpit methodology for co-creating research projects. Research expertise. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Research expertise. |
| Impact | This multi-disciplinary collaboration is bringing together TAS and Good Systems (University of Texas at Austin) together to co-create research projects. Horizon Researcher Pepi Barnard facilitated RRI educational workshops for City of Austin's office of innovation in Oct 2023. Additionally a number of workshops with academics, post docs and lecturers also took place during the visit. |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | AAMAS 2023 Demo |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | We presented a demo of our research on the performance benefits of human-swarm teaming to an international academic audience, attendees of the 22nd International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2023) in London, United Kingdom. We were awarded the Best Demo award for AAMAS 2023. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://uos-haris.online/demo/aamas2023/ |
| Description | AI UK 2023 Demo |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | We presented a demo of our research on the performance benefit of human-swarm teaming at the AI UK 2023 event. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://uos-haris.online/demo/aiuk2023/ |
| Description | DP World AI in Practice: Challenges and Use cases |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | This was a follow-up event from the Tech Solent PWC event last year. We were invited to DP World Southampton to discuss AI in practice. We presented our research work on Swarm Robotics. They also presented us with use cases for adopting AI in their business and the challenges they are currently facing with deploying AI. We are currently discussing partnership opportunities based on this. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.techsolent.org/event-details/ai-in-practice-dp-world |
| Description | Dynamic leader election in cellular connected UAV swarms (CMI-TAS event) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This presentation at the CMI-TAS event on dynamic leader election was done to report progress on the AUTONOMY project carried out at the University of Southampton and to engage with members of the local academic community on ideas being explored that may be helpful in actualizing the research goals of this project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Interoperability in Robotics & Autonomous Systems Proving Grounds Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | This workshop was a UKRAS event hosted at the RCA in London. Attendance was strictly by invitation. We had two round table discussions. The first session was focused on the following: • What are the challenges to maintaining interoperability across multi-vendor fleets of robots? • How can we produce guidelines for measuring interoperability performance? What regulatory frameworks should be followed? • How can we encourage the adoption of interoperability standards and practices amongst the robotic systems suppliers? • How can we facilitate innovation and UK leadership in the area? The second roundtable discussion was focused on specific use cases such as applications spanning from aerial surveying to underwater construction, assembly line autonomy, and power plant operations; identifying potential stakeholders of relevant interoperability problems, the measurement and implementation challenges, and how relevant solutions can be achieved. The aim is to publish a white paper based on the roundtable discussions by attendees from academia and the industry, which could inform future UKRI research funding focus. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | SOTSEF 2023 Demo |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | We presented a demo of our research on the performance benefit of human-swarm teaming at the Southampton Science and Engineering Festival (SOTSEF) 2023. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://uos-haris.online/demo/sotsef2023/ |
| Description | TAS 2024 Showcase Demo on Dynamically Adaptive Human-Swarm Interaction |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | We presented a demo of our research on dynamically adaptive human-swarm interaction at the Trustworthy Autonomous Systems (TAS) 2024 Showcase Event held in London, United Kingdom from the 5th - 6th of March 2024. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://uos-haris.online/demo/tas2024/ |
| Description | Tech Solent Event (Round Table Discussion) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | This Tech Solent event was hosted at the PWC office in Southampton. We were invited to talk about our work in the areas of responsible AI. We presented some research on human swarm teaming. We led a roundtable discussion session to gather their challenges with the regulation and adoption of artificial intelligence in their businesses. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.techsolent.org/event-details/techsolent-december-event-with-rai-uk |
| Description | The future of UAVs: towards trustworthy applications and development tools (Workshop) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | We organised the workshop to bring together experts from academia, government, and industry to establish connections and form groups for future research projects centered around the use of UAVs. The workshop was organised as part of the EPSRC Autonomy Project on Smart Solutions Towards Cellular-Connected Unmanned Aerial Vehicles System (EP/W004364/1). The workshop was organised by Dr Ayodeji O. Abioye, Dr Sergio A. Araujo-Estrada, and Dr Mohammad D. Soorati with the support of Prof Jim Scanlan and Prof Gopal Ramchurn. The "Future of UAVs: towards trustworthy applications and development tools" workshop was a national event hosted at the University of Southampton, on Monday 20th November 2023, 09:30 - 16:30 Hrs (BST). We invited four speakers to kick start the roundtable sessions with the talks on "Future UAVs" by Prof Jim Scanlan (SOTON UAV), "Trustworthy & Responsible use of AI" by Prof Gopal Ramchurn (TAS Hub and RAI UK), "Future Industry Applications of UAVs" by Prof Henry Tse (Connected Places Catapult), and "Public perception and ethical concerns on using drones" by Prof Christian Enemark (DRONETHICS). The event had three round table sessions to discuss novel applications of UAVs, as well as the ethical use, and development tools. The discussion was guided around themes ranging from agile economy (e.g. parcel delivery), emergency response (e.g. medical delivery), and environment monitoring. New ideas for potential future applications, such as long-range drones with perch and recharge capability, were identified. Areas for future research and funding such as the development of an all-weather drone and better airspace management were also discussed. Attendees were able to expand their network for future collaborations. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |