Learning to Control Large Teams of Robots
Date: May 9, 2025 @ 3:00-4:00PM | Location: Gates B03 | Speaker: Prof. Eduardo Montijano | Affiliation: Universidad de Zaragoza | The seminar is open to Stanford faculty, students, and sponsors.
Abstract: Controlling large teams of robots is a crucial challenge in robotics, due to the need for solutions that balance efficiency, scalability, and robustness. This talk will delve into recent advancements in learning-based control for multi-robot systems, with a focus on scalable coordination and decentralized decision-making. I will present the latest results we have achieved to efficiently learn distributed control strategies for large teams of robots, leveraging physics-informed machine learning and generative AI techniques. We will see how physics-informed learning can be used to provide the learned controllers three key properties: interpretability, modularity, and scalability. Similarly, we will demonstrate how generative AI can be used to ease interaction with non-expert users to describe desired large-scale swarm configurations, producing smooth trajectories and accounting for potential collisions through a reactive navigation algorithm.
Bio: Eduardo Montijano is an Associate Professor in the Departamento de Informática e Ingeniería de Sistemas at Universidad de Zaragoza in Spain. He received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain, in 2008 and 2012 respectively. He is currently visiting Stanford University with a Fulbright scholarship. His research interests are in the field of distributed algorithms applied to cooperative control and perception of multi-robot systems.
Please visit https://stanfordasl.github.io/robotics_seminar/ for this quarter’s lineup of speakers. Although we encourage live in-person attendance, recordings of talks will be posted also.
Covid-19 related instructions: We recommend wearing a well-fitted, high-quality face covering inside the classroom.
If you’re interested, feel free to join Eduardo for a casual lunch at Blend Cafe at 12 PM. We’ll be sitting outside at one of the tables—just swing by and find us around noon!