Please join us for a talk by Hazem Chaabi on 20-Nov-2025, 2pm (B308, Al Kindi)!
Title: Distributed Multi-Robot Exploration With Connectivity Maintenance Under QoS Constraints
Abstract: Over the past few decades, autonomous robotics has witnessed remarkable advancement, driven by the integration of distributed coordination mechanisms, bio-inspired algorithms, and machine learning techniques to address complex real-world challenges. In multi-robot exploration scenarios, particularly for search and rescue operations, the challenge extends beyond simple area coverage to maintaining robust communication networks in unknown, infrastructure-denied environments where traditional centralized approaches fail. Digital connectivity and decentralized decision-making emerge as critical enablers for mission success. In this presentation, we explore how dynamic role-based coordination can transform multi-robot teams into self-organizing systems capable of balancing exploration efficiency with network reliability. We present DRBECM, a distributed framework where robots autonomously alternate between exploration and communication relay roles, and DRBECM-ML, which enhances this approach by integrating machine learning models trained on real-world signal propagation data from the FIT-IoT-Lab testbed to replace idealized geometric connectivity assumptions with realistic RSSI predictions, enabling adaptive decision-making in dynamic environments.
Bio: Hazem Chaabi is a final-year PhD student at the Inria Centre of the University of Lille, within the FUN research group, and under the supervision of Nathalie Mitton. His work focuses on distributed strategies for multi-robot exploration that ensure connectivity maintenance and quality-of-service guarantees. He earned his Telecommunication Engineering degree from the Higher School of Communication of Tunis in 2022.
