Sparse Robot Swarms for Atmospheric Electricity Measurement on Earth and other Planetoids

My first-year project focused on the development of a 'sparse swarm' of mobile robots. Classic lab-bound swarm research assumes a rather high density of robots, with frequent communication and/or physical interaction between them. As we move toward 'field swarm robotics', robots will be further apart from each other (e.g. > 100m, or even > 1km) and communicate more intermittently [1]. It may also have a relatively small group size (e.g. 4-10 robots rather than 100+, an order of magnitude lower). Such a sparse swarm could be ideal for scientific survey and monitoring of large areas. The overall goal of this project is to create a real-world sparse swarm that can be used for atmospheric electrostatic measurements on Earth [2] and other planetoids, such as Mars. Studying atmospheric electrostatic electricity is an important area of research that has the potential to advance our understanding of the atmosphere and its impacts on the Earth and other planets. A group of widely dispersed or separated robots could provide a large amount of scientific data on the electrical activity in the atmosphere [1]. Obtaining simultaneous, spatially distributed measurement of the atmosphere, with mobile sensors that can seek out points of maximal interest, would unlock new research frontiers in atmospheric and space science (Prof. Aplin is an expert in this field).