Ross Mead has been selected as a 2005-2006 Undergraduate Research Academy Scholar for his research proposal entitled "Algorithms for Control and Interaction of Large Formations of Robots". The Undergraduate Research Academy (URA) recruits eligible students to undertake research and creativity activity under the guidance of dedicated faculty members. Ross will be working with Dr. Jerry Weinberg and Dr. Bill White, who have both signed on as faculty mentors for his research.

Ross's research is motivated by a joint workshop between NASA and the NSF for harvesting solar power in space. His proposal involves the use of mobile robots to form a solar reflector. The formation of robots will be treated as a lattice of computational elements, or cells. Each cell is in one of a given set of states governed by a set of rules. A command would be sent to a small number of robots, and the formation would transform as other robots react to changes in their neighbors. The formation algorithms created will be tested on 18 ground-based EyeBots, provided by the Department of Computer Science. A graphical human-robot interface will also be created to provide visualization of the formation and update the status of each robot.