{"306801":{"#nid":"306801","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Arkin Studies Animals to Build Smarter Robots","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EThis story\u0026nbsp;was\u0026nbsp;originally published in the\u003Cem\u003E Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003E,\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/gtalumnimag.com\/?p=46378\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EVol. 90, No. 2, 2014\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECan studying the mating behavior of birds help the U.S. military develop better unmanned systems? That\u2019s what \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/robotics.gatech.edu\/team\/faculty\/arkin\u0022\u003ERonald Arkin\u003C\/a\u003E, a roboticist at Georgia Tech\u2019s College of Computing, and other researchers aim to find out as part of the U.S. Navy-funded Heterogeneous Unmanned Networked Teams (HUNT) Project.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EInitiated in 2008, the HUNT Project is a multi-phased study that looks at assorted animal interactions\u2014from wolves stalking an elk to squirrels hiding acorn caches\u2014as inspiration for developing new algorithms to guide intelligent autonomous systems. For now, Arkin has been working with computer models and little bots in the lab. But things can always scale up to larger, more robust unmanned vehicles.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThat\u2019s the beauty of the basic research,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s not limited to a physical type of platform.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOne of the earliest subjects of HUNT was \u201clekking\u201d behavior in birds, in which a group of males gathers around\u2014but not too closely\u2014a very handsome specimen (a \u201chotshot\u201d) in order to mate with females. This became the basis for seeing how one could distribute autonomous systems behind enemy lines \u201cwithout using strict formation control\u201d but in a way that \u201cmaximizes the likelihood of encounter\u201d with the enemy, Arkin says.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn 2010 and 2011, Arkin and his team moved on to wolf packs. Initially, they thought the wolves coordinated with each other when hunting elk. But Dan MacNulty, a professor of wildlife ecology at Utah State University, disabused them of that notion. \u201cWhen we brought Dan in the first time, he informed us that there is no coordination,\u201d he says. \u201cThey are all individual, greedy agents.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESo how exactly did they work as a pack without explicit rules or communication? One possible explanation was that a predator chasing down an elk indicated to the others that the hunted animal was weak. So applying a probabilistic model to the stage of a hunt, Arkin tried to \u201creplicate that behavior in robotic systems to see if we could do the same sort of thing both in simulations and platforms.\u201d And he succeeded.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFollowing on the wolf pack research, Arkin then looked at bird mobbing, in which birds gather to drive off a stronger predator. Did it make sense for a weak bird to feign strength and participate in the mobbing? His simulations demonstrated that under certain conditions, yes, it did. And those same lessons could be applied to a low-power robot or one that\u2019s out of ammo.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EArkin is now looking more broadly at robot deception. But,\u0026nbsp;he explains, ultimately all of the pieces of HUNT relate to one another as examples of biologically inspired group behaviors.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Many top defense technologies get their start in Tech\u2019s labs."}],"uid":"27255","created_gmt":"2014-07-03 10:34:55","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:16:41","author":"Josie Giles","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-07-03T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-07-03T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"236751":{"id":"236751","type":"image","title":"Ronald Arkin","body":null,"created":"1449243659","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:40:59","changed":"1475894911","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:48:31","alt":"Ronald Arkin","file":{"fid":"197682","name":"ron_arkin.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ron_arkin_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ron_arkin_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2570474,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/ron_arkin_0.jpg?itok=ujbasSBf"}},"306811":{"id":"306811","type":"image","title":"Wolf","body":null,"created":"1449244668","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:57:48","changed":"1475895015","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:15","alt":"Wolf","file":{"fid":"199757","name":"animal-behavior-e1402509758773.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/animal-behavior-e1402509758773_1.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/animal-behavior-e1402509758773_1.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":850467,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/animal-behavior-e1402509758773_1.jpg?itok=q52lwvt_"}}},"media_ids":["236751","306811"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/robotics.gatech.edu\/team\/faculty\/arkin","title":"Ron Arkin"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/ai\/robot-lab\/hunt\/HUNT.htm","title":"HUNT Project"}],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"}],"categories":[{"id":"152","name":"Robotics"}],"keywords":[{"id":"97101","name":"deceptive robots; squirrels; robotics; ronald arkin; military; intelligence"},{"id":"97081","name":"Heterogeneous Unmanned Networked Teams (HUNT) Project"},{"id":"4159","name":"hunt"},{"id":"78811","name":"Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines"},{"id":"78271","name":"IRIM"},{"id":"97091","name":"Ron Arkin; Robotics; wolf"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39481","name":"National Security"},{"id":"39521","name":"Robotics"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJosie Giles\u003Cbr \/\u003EIRIM Marketing Communications\u003Cbr \/\u003Ejosie@gatech.edu\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}