Sensor Planning for Large Numbers of Robots

Abstract

For my parents, David and Barbara, who supported and encouraged my interest in robotics at every step of this journey. I also have many to thank in the Resilient Intelligent Systems Lab. My officemates, Ellen and Derek were ever-present companions. Ellen, I believe our fish tank set new standards for office decor as well as undergraduate achievement. Derek, aside from being my office compatriot, you were also an early mentor when I was still an intern. Thank you for that time. And, Vibhav, you were my replacement, but I preferred being students together. Kshitij and Cormac, we collaborated on some of the best work that is not in this thesis. Thank you Curt for keeping my robots alive before I learned to avoid them. And, thanks Wennie for doing the hard work to develop systems for exploration and mapping. Vishnu, thank you for demonstrating the first feasible solution to the graduation problem. Your leadership was invaluable. Shaurya, thank you for being someone who I can talk to about research and everything else. Also, John, the pandemic has taken our pizza, and I want it back. Thanks to everyone else in the lab who has made my time here brighter, including Alex, Xuning, Aditya, Arjav, Mosam, Moses, Tim, Matt, Mike, Erik, and anyone else who I may have forgotten. Also, Karen Widmaier, you put in a good deal of hard work for our lab, and you make our hearts warmer.Many thanks to my friends in the Robotics Institute. Achal and Radhika, Dhruv and Cara, and now I am compelled to mention Xuning again, thank you for the adventures that brought so much joy to this time. Shushman, you are a caring friend. I did not introduce you to my family; I introduced my family to you. Thank you Reuben, you speak softly, but your words carry great weight. Nick, you have done great things for the RI, but you also do great things for frogs.Thanks to everyone else who contributed to my time here. Rachel Burcin, I am only one of a vast number of people who have been significantly impacted by your tireless enthusiasm administrating RISS. I could not keep up with you. Reid, you welcomed me to CMU twice, and I hope to someday become more like you. Thank you Michael Erdmann, you allowed me to babble about submodular functions in front of 16-811. Thanks Sankalp, your words in front of same class introduced me to same topic. My thanks also to Roie for validating my interest in 3-increasing functions and for our too infrequent exchanges on the topic.Thank you Nate for guiding my journey in robotics at CMU. You accepted my stubbornness and pushed me to excellence. Thanks also to the rest of my committee, Anupam, Katia, and Mac for direction and advice. I hope these first few pages are to your liking; for the next hundred, well I am not Asimov.