Research

My research focuses on the coordination and control of multi-robot systems. Click on the links below for more details on specific projects.

Collaborative Autonomy Group @ Boston University

Stochastic Dynamic Games in Belief Space (Honorable Mention for the 2021 IEEE T-RO King-Sun Fu Memorial Best Paper Award)

Social Behavior for Autonomous Vehicles

Risk and Cooperation in Autonomous Driving

Distributed Target Tracking in Cluttered Environments

Adapting to Performance Variations in Multi-Robot Coverage Control

Bio-Inspired Non-Cooperative Multi-Robot Herding

Cooperative Multi-Quadrotor Pursuit of an Evader in an Environment with No-Fly Zones (Best Conference Paper Finalist, ICRA 2016)

Intercepting Rogue Robots: An Algorithm for Capturing Multiple Evaders with Multiple Pursuers

Dynamics of a Pigeon Turning in Flight [HMC]

Publications

Robots

Journal Papers

  • W. Schwarting, A. Pierson, S. Karaman, and D. Rus. Stochastic dynamic games in belief space. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 2021, Honorable Mention for the 2021 IEEE T-RO King-Sun Fu Memorial Best Paper Award [pdf]
  • W. Schwarting, A. Pierson, J. Alonso-Mora, S. Karaman, and D. Rus, “Social behavior for autonomous vehicles,” to appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 2019 [online]
  • S. McGill, G. Rosman, T. Ort, A. Pierson, I. Gilitschenski, B. Araki, L. Fletcher, S. Karaman, D. Rus, and J. Leonard, “Probabilistic Risk Metrics for Navigating Occluded Intersections,” IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L) with joint IROS option, Accepted. Patent pending. [pdf]
  • A. Pierson and M. Schwager, “Controlling Non-Cooperative Herds with Robotic Herders,” Transactions on Robotics (T-RO), 2018, vol. 34, no. 2. [pdf]
  • A. Pierson, Z. Wang, and M. Schwager, “Intercepting Rogue Robots: An Algorithm for Capturing Multiple Evaders with Multiple Pursuers,” IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L) with joint ICRA option, 2017, vol. 2, no. 2. [pdf]
  • A. Pierson, L. Figueiredo, L. Pimenta, and M. Schwager, “Adapting to Sensing and Actuation Variations in Multi-Robot Coverage,” International Journal of Robotics Research, 2017, vol. 36, issue 3. [pdf]

Conference Papers

  • A. Ray, A. Pierson, and D. Rus. Free-space ellipsoid graphs for multi-agent target monitoring. 2022 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (IRCA), May 2022, accepted
  • A. Ray, A. Pierson, H. Zhu, J. Alonso-Mora, and D. Rus. Multi-robot task assignment for aerial tracking with viewpoint constraints. In 2021 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), [pdf]
  • A. Pierson, J.W. Romanishin, H. Hansen, L. Zamora Yañez, and D. Rus. Designing and deploying a mobile uvc disinfection robot. In 2021 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), [pdf]
  • Z. Huang, W. Schwarting, A. Pierson, , H. Guo, M. Ang Jr., and D. Rus. Safe path planning with multi-model risk level sets. 2020 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), October 2020 [pdf]
  • A. Pierson, W. Schwarting, S. Karaman, and D. Rus, “Weighted Buffered Voronoi Cells for Distributed Semi-Cooperative Behavior,” IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), June 2020. [pdf]
  • N. Buckman, A. Pierson, S. Karaman, and D. Rus, “Generating Visibility-Aware Trajectories for Cooperative and Proactive Motion Planning,” IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), June 2020. [pdf]
  • N. Buckman, A. Pierson, W. Schwarting, S. Karaman, and D. Rus, “Sharing is Caring: Socially-Compliant Autonomous Intersection Negotiation,” IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Nov 2019. [pdf]
  • A. Pierson, W. Schwarting, S. Karaman, and D. Rus, “Learning Risk Level Set Parameters from Data Sets for Safer Driving,” IEEE International Symposium on Intelligent Vehicles (IV), June 2019. Selected for Oral Presentation (<10% of accepted papers) [pdf]
  • A. Pierson, C. Vasile, A. Gandhi, W. Schwarting, S. Karaman, and D. Rus, “Dynamic Risk Density for Autonomous Navigation in Cluttered Environments without Object Detection,” IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2019. [pdf]
  • A. Pierson, W. Schwarting, S. Karaman, and D. Rus, “Navigating Congested Environments with Risk  Level Sets,” In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2018. [pdf] Patent pending.
  • A. Pierson and D. Rus, “Distributed Target Tracking in Cluttered Environments with Guaranteed Collision Avoidance,” International Symposium on Multi-Robot and Multi-Agent Systems (MRS), Dec 2017. [pdf]
  • A. Pierson, A. Ataei, I. Paschalidis, and M. Schwager, “Cooperative Multi-Quadrotor Pursuit of an Evader in an Environment with No-Fly Zones,” In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2016. Best Conference Paper Finalist. [pdf]
  • A. Pierson and M. Schwager, “Bio-Inspired Non-Cooperative Multi-Robot Herding,” In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2015. [pdf]
  • A. Pierson, L. Figueiredo, L. Pimenta, and M. Schwager, “Adapting to Performance Variations in Multi-Robot Coverage,” In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2015. [pdf]
  • A. Pierson and M. Schwager, “Adaptive Inter-Robot Trust for Robust Multi-Robot Sensor Coverage,” In Proceedings of the International Symposium of Robotics Research (ISRR 13), December 2013. [pdf]

Pigeons

  • I. Ros, M. Badger, A. Pierson, L. Bassman, A. Biewener, “Pigeons produce aerodynamic torques through changes in wing trajectory during low speed aerial turns,” Journal of Experimental Biology, December, 2014, vol. 218, no. 3, pp. 480-490.
  • I. Ros, M. Badger, A. Pierson, L. Bassman, A. Biewener, “Translational and Rotational Components of Low Speed Turning in the Pigeon Columba livia,” Integrative and Comparative Biology, 2011, vol. 51.
  • I. Ros, L. Bassman, M. Badger, A. Pierson, A. Biewener, “Pigeons steer like helicopters and generate down-and upstroke lift during low speed turns,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, December, 2011, vol. 108, no. 50, pp. 19990-19995.