• Explore
    • Contact Us
  • Faculty
  • Research
    • Research Areas
    • Research Centers
  • Graduate Degrees
    • Computer Science Programs
    • Current Graduate Students
  • Undergraduate Degrees
  • News & Events
    • News
    • Seminar Series
    • Distinguished Lecture Series
    • Research Showcase
  • Apply Now
    • Undergraduate Admissions
    • Graduate Admissions
    • Faculty Candidates

Seminar Series

All seminars will take place on Fridays at 11 a.m. in DBH 6011. Check seminar details below.

Seminar Series Archive

Sven Koenig
USC

November 5, 2021
11:00am - 12:00pm

Title:

Multi-Agent Path Finding and Its Applications

Abstract:

The coordination of robots and other agents becomes more and more important for industry. For example, on the order of one thousand robots already navigate autonomously in Amazon fulfillment centers to move inventory pods all the way from their storage locations to the picking stations that need the products they store (and vice versa). Optimal and even some approximately optimal path planning for these robots is NP-hard, yet one must find high-quality collision-free paths for them in real-time. Algorithms for such multi-agent path-finding problems have been studied in robotics and theoretical computer science for a longer time but are insufficient since they are either fast but of insufficient solution quality or of good solution quality but too slow. In this talk, I will discuss different variants of multi-agent path-finding problems, cool ideas for both solving them and executing the resulting plans robustly, and several of their applications, including warehousing, manufacturing, and autonomous driving. I will also discuss how three Ph.D. students from my research group and one Ph.D. student from a collaborating research group at Monash University used multi-agent path-finding technology to win the NeurIPS-20 Flatland train scheduling competition.
Our research on this topic has been funded by both NSF and Amazon Robotics.

Speaker Bio:

Sven Koenig is a professor of computer science at the University of Southern California. Most of his current research focuses on planning for single agents (such as robots) or multi-agent systems. Additional information about him can be found on his webpages: idm-lab.org.

Return to Schedule

  • © 2022 UC Regents
  • Feedback
  • Privacy Policy