Researchers from Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at the University of Southampton will use bio-inspired algorithms and machine learning to develop fault-tolerant robotic swarms in a new scheme funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Assistant Professor Dr Danesh Tarapore from ECS’s Agents, Interaction and Complexity research group will lead the New Investigator Award project that will create groups that can rapidly detect faults and adapt to environmental changes, paving the way for real-world applications such as the monitoring of pollutants in large bodies of water.

Through close collaboration with project partners, the research will lead to the next generation of robot swarms, capable of sustained operation for extended periods of time without human intervention.

“Robots are increasingly becoming an important part of our day-to-day lives, automating tasks like keeping our homes clean and packing parcels at large warehouses,” Danesh explains. “Our aging population and the need to substitute human workers in dangerous and repetitive tasks mean that new tasks are emerging on the horizon, such as automation in agriculture and environmental monitoring. This will require robots to do more and work in large-numbers as part of a swarm, acting over vast areas and efficiently performing their mission.

“However, robot swarms to date are not prepared for deployment; unable to deal with the inevitable damages and faults sustained during operation, they remain frail systems that cease functioning in difficult conditions. The goal of this project is to remedy this situation by developing algorithms for robot swarms to rapidly - in no more than a few minutes - recover from faults and damages sustained by robots of the swarm.”

Existing fault-tolerant systems for robot swarms can only diagnose issues anticipated in advance by the designer. Danesh proposes robotics move beyond these traditional approaches as it is not possible to predict all the scenarios a swarm may encounter while operating in complex environments for extended periods of time. His new project, titled ‘Rapid fault-recovery strategies for resilient robot swarms’, will lay the foundations for future robotics through the development of data-efficient machine-learning and nature-inspired computing algorithms.

The new approach will enable robots to adapt their behaviour to sustained faults within the swarm by learning through trial-and-error new compensatory movements that work despite the faults. The resulting system of working swarm behaviours would open up new applications for long-term deployment, with Danesh already planning a swarm of autonomous surface vehicles that can monitor large bodies of water for pollutants.

EPSRC’s New Investigator Award is a new scheme that supports researchers who have recently entered their first academic lectureship position. Danesh becomes the first researcher in Southampton’s Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering to receive the award, which will provide £250,000 over the next two and a half years, and will collaborate with the Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute as well as project partners ASV Global, MBDA UK Ltd and INRIA Lorraine.

Artificial intelligence expert Dr Sarvapali (Gopal) Ramchurn has been awarded a grant from the AXA Research Fund, becoming only the second UK-based academic to ever be supported by the initiative in the field of Responsible Artificial Intelligence.

The AXA Research Fund, the philanthropic initiative of the AXA Group, is dedicated to boosting scientific discoveries that contribute to societal progress and will provide him with €250,000 to further investigate how AI can be responsible and accountable.

The award recognises the Associate Professor’s innovative contributions to his field, which includes over a decade’s work at the University of Southampton’s renowned Department of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS).

“We are at a critical point in time where key questions are being asked about how AI will change people’s lives for better or worse,” Sarvapali says. “It’s an honour to have been granted this award, and it reflects how the research in our Agents, Interaction and Complexity group is truly world-leading. It is recognition of not just my work but also the current and past colleagues, researchers and students that I’ve been fortunate to work with.”

Sarvapali’s research has largely centred on the development of intelligent software and robotic agents, with a focus on how such agents are designed to work alongside humans and other agents. He is also a board member of ECS’ new Centre for Machine Intelligence, which aims to develop a coherent approach to research and technology transfer in the areas of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and autonomous systems. His next steps will focus on the design of interactions with AI that ensures that humans have reasonable expectations about the behaviour of intelligent agents and supports rather than hinders their daily activities.

“My goal is to develop some of the underpinning technology that will ensure AI remains safe and responsible,” Sarvapali explains. “Some of the targets will be to look at how we can design AI systems to cope with varying degrees of user understanding and how we can design interactions with AI to make sure that control is given to users when it most matters, while the complexity of decision making is dealt with by the AI when the user does not need to be involved. We will also be establishing new methodologies derived from a user-centred approach to the design of AI. A key part of the work will also involve tracking the provenance of AI and human decision making to ensure that systems are accountable.”

Researchers from the University of Southampton have previously worked on the design of responsible AI in a number of projects funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. These include ORCHID, a programme grant that investigated the notion of Human-Agent Collectives, and the A-IOT project which looks at developing the Autonomous Internet of Things.

Dr Ramchurn talks about how his grant from the AXA Research Fund will support further investigations into how artificial intelligence can be responsible and accountable.