Uploaded September 2022 | Updated September 2026, 8 hours ago
Robotics Seminar: Ariadne, a common-sense thread for enabling provable safety in air mobility system
Eric Feron
Professor
Electrical, Computer Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
Saudi Arabia
Ariadne is the Greek mythological character who provided her lover Theseus with a spool of thread to exit the Labyrinth, a maze he had to enter to kill the Minotaur, a half-human, half-bull monster. By doing so, she saved her lover from a certain death, and she surpassed Deadalus the genius architect of the Labyrinth. Today, Ariadne's thread saves lives in aviation and other safety-critical environments by requiring that one or more "Plan B" be ready to kick in for each failure known to have happened in the past, or likely to be happening in the future. Always required, often overlooked, Ariadne can often be embodied and implemented easily. It provides useful guidance towards designing certifiable autonomy.
For more information on the Maryland Robotics Center see:
https://robotics.umd.edu
Robotics Seminar: Ariadne, a common-sense thread for enabling provable safety in air mobility system
Eric Feron
Professor
Electrical, Computer Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
Saudi Arabia
Ariadne is the Greek mythological character who provided her lover Theseus with a spool of thread to exit the Labyrinth, a maze he had to enter to kill the Minotaur, a half-human, half-bull monster. By doing so, she saved her lover from a certain death, and she surpassed Deadalus the genius architect of the Labyrinth. Today, Ariadne's thread saves lives in aviation and other safety-critical environments by requiring that one or more "Plan B" be ready to kick in for each failure known to have happened in the past, or likely to be happening in the future. Always required, often overlooked, Ariadne can often be embodied and implemented easily. It provides useful guidance towards designing certifiable autonomy.
For more information on the Maryland Robotics Center see:
https://robotics.umd.edu
![Maryland Robotics Center Seminar, January 31, 2025: Markus P. Nemitz [REUPLOAD]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/g1aHjIuysYI/mqdefault.jpg "Maryland Robotics Center Seminar, January 31, 2025: Markus P. Nemitz [REUPLOAD]
Maryland Robotics Center Seminar: Design. Print. Deploy. Enabling Swarm Robotics via Additive Manufacturing
Markus P. Nemitz, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Tufts University
Swarm robots offer transformative potential for applications where rapid and efficient coverage of large areas is critical. However, the high cost and fragility of advanced robots, coupled with the limited functionality of affordable alternatives, have historically hindered their large-scale deployment, confining much of swarm robotics research to simulations. While drones have successfully evolved into capable, low-cost swarm robots through commercialization, their fragility and inability to physically interact with the environment have limited their use in contact-based tasks and underwater operations. To address these challenges, our research focuses on the rapid design and fabrication of low-cost, capable, and scalable terrestrial swarm robots using additive manufacturing. In this talk, I will present strategies for creating increasingly intelligent yet affordable robots, advancing the cost-capability trade-off in robotics. I will showcase developments in 3D-printed soft quadrupeds, fluidic actuators, and controllers, exploring their current performance, future potential, and how they bridge the gap between laboratory prototypes and real-world applications. By advancing swarm engineering, we unlock new opportunities for distributed problem solving, such as explosive ordnance disposal, where expendable robots can be produced at a cost lower than the landmines they neutralize.
For more information on the Maryland Robotics Center see:
https://robotics.umd.edu")
