KKMany hands make light work: the same applies to multiple robots and drones, which are capable of quickly scanning large areas, and can also clean or inspect them. Khalil Al-Rahman Youssefi’s doctoral thesis focuses on developing new technologies that allow swarms of robots to fully map an area using a method known as ‘coverage exploration for robot swarms’.
Robot swarms offer many advantages: they are significantly faster than individual devices, can adapt flexibly to varying conditions and require far less computing power than other technologies. In addition, robot and drone swarms can perform tasks that are hazardous for humans.
In his Master’s thesis, which he completed in 2020 at the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in Iran, Khalil Al-Rahman Youssefi examined how swarms of robots and drones can successfully locate people in a collapsed building. To do this, the swarm needs a signal from a person. At the end of his final exam, several examiners asked how the problem could be solved without this signal: “It was clear to me that for many applications, such as search and rescue missions, it must be possible to scan an entire area thoroughly in order to ultimately confirm that there are no people left inside a destroyed building.” Swarms perform similar tasks in activities such as cleaning floors or inspecting ships. They all have one thing in common: the swarm must be able to cover the entire area. However, there is an issue: “To do this, the individual robots and drones must always know where they are. At first, the camera only sees a specific surface. It is only when the robot itself knows where it is that it can communicate with others about which areas have not yet been scanned.” In addition to the challenges of localisation, communication among swarm participants is also complex, as Khalil Al-Rahman Youssefi explains: “What we are dealing with here is a major communication effort that is difficult to organise.”
Khalil Al-Rahman Youssefi moved to Austria in 2021 to pursue his doctoral studies, and is now a project assistant in Wilfried Elmenreich’s research group at the Department of Networked and Embedded Systems. Since 2022, he has also been working as a researcher at Lakeside Labs GmbH. Khalil Al-Rahman Youssefi, who studied software engineering at Bachelor’s and Artificial Intelligence in Master’s level, came to Swarms in stages, a field that has fascinated him for many years. “Swarm Intelligence-based algorithms are versatile. They have the potential to solve previously unsolved problems, such as optimisation issues in industrial companies, efficiently and quickly. What sets them apart is that the swarms are self-organising: similar to bees flying over a large flower meadow, they can organise themselves without the need for centralized control,” Khalil Al-Rahman Youssefi explains.
He plans to complete his doctoral thesis by the end of the year. After that, he can see himself founding a start-up to put the technologies he has developed to practical use. He believes that Klagenfurt offers a supportive environment for this, as he explains: “I grew up in a town in the desert, similar in size to Klagenfurt. During my Master’s degree, I lived in a mega-city with three million inhabitants. Today I know: I like cities of a manageable size. Klagenfurt is not only a beautiful place with lots of leisure activities in the surrounding countryside, but I also received a lot of support when I moved here.”
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A few words with … Khalil Al-Rahman Youssefi
When was the last time you discussed your research with someone outside the scientific community?
We usually have some talks about what I am doing with my wife time to time.
What is the first thing you do in the office each morning?
Check my emails and prepare my Todo list for the day.
Who do you regard as the greatest scientist in history, and why?
Charles Darwin! He uncovered Evolution which is the basis to Evolutionary Algorithms we know today.
And what calms you down?
Going for a walk with my dog, Tito.
Do you take proper holidays? Without thinking about your work?
In my current situation, that I do a PhD at the same time of doing research in a different field, it’s actually very hard to claim. But I always try my best to keep my mind free when I am not working.
What are you looking forward to?
Closing the PhD section and move forward to establish my startup.
Der Beitrag Robot swarms that scan an entire area erschien zuerst auf University of Klagenfurt.