C-MANTIC Research Group

Collaborative Multi-AgeNt/multi-robot Technologies and Intelligent Coordination Research Group

Computer Science Department, College of IS & T, University of Nebraska, Omaha

The main research topics of the C-MANTIC group are:

Autonomous, adaptive, multi-agent/multi-robot systems
Swarm robotics
Game theory and computational economics

The laboratory features state-of-the-art equipment for conducting research in robotics and multi-agent systems. We have three all-terrain Coroware Explorer robots, several robots that can be used within the laboratory for conducting experiments such as Corobot, Khepera II and e-puck, and several licenses of the commercial robot simulator Webots.

The main focus our research is to integrate computational economics, game theory and market-based techniques with emergent computing based techniques such as swarming, to coordinate multiple robots to perform dynamic and complex tasks in an initially unknown environment. Some of the research problems we have worked on include distributed robotic terrain or area coverage, multi-robot task allocation, multi-robot formation control, algorithms for dynamic reconfiguration of modular robots, distributed information aggregation using prediction markets, etc.

For information about the people, projects, publications and other topics related to the lab, please click on the links above.

Recent News

[March 28, 2012] Janyl Jumadinova received the 2012 dissertation scholarship (cash prize $2,000) from the UNO Office of Graduate Studies.
[February 18, 2012] CMANTIC lab exhibit at Nebraska Robotics Expo [Photos]
[December 5, 2011] Zachary Wilson received the best graduate student award from the UNO computer science department. Justin Schmidt received an award for participating in the 2011 UNO ACM Programming contest team. [Photos]
[November 14, 2011] Dr. Sajal Kumar Das, Prof., Comp. Sci. & Engg. Dept, U. Texas, Arlington, visited the CMANTIC lab
[November 11, 2011] Dr. Nikolaus Correll, Asst. Prof., Computer Science Dept, U. Colorado, Boulder, visited the CMANTIC lab and gave a presentation at the CIST round table titled "Any-COM Multi-robot Path Planning". [Photos]
[October 28, 2011] Dr. Noa Agmon, Research Associate, CS Dept., U. Texas, Austin visited the CMANTIC Lab and gave a presentation at the CIST Round Table titled "Multi-robot Patrol: From Theory to Reality"
[October 25, 2011] Dr. Vint Cerf visited the C-MANTIC Lab as part of his tour of the UNOmaha campus [Photos]
[September 2011] Rockbrook Elementary students visit the C-MANTIC Lab [Photos]
[August 2011] We received a 3-year, $1 million grant from NASA EPSCoR for the ModRED project
[August 2011] Our paper titled "Distributed Decision Making in a Multi-agent Prediction Market using Partially Observable Stochastic Games"received the Best Paper Award at ICEC 2011.
[July 2011] Dr. Dasgupta gave an invited talk on "Multi-robot Team Formation using Coalition Games" at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata
[June 2011] Ke Cheng graduated as the first Ph.D. student from the CMANTIC Lab. Congrats, Ke!
[May 2011] Dr. Dipti Prasad Mukherjee, Chair and Professor, Electrial and Communication Sciences Unit, Indian Statistical Institute visited the CMANTIC Lab and gave a presentation at the CIST Round Table titled "Tracking Deformable Shapes in Video using Active Contour"
[May 2011] Janyl Jumadinova was selected to present her research at the AAMAS doctoral student consortium.
[April 2011] Zachary Ramaekers successfully defended his Master's thesis on dynamic reconfiguration in modular robots using coalition games under uncertainty. Congrats, Zach!