Harvard University

Research in micro-aerial vehicle (MAV) construction, control, and high-density power sources is enabling swarms of MAVs as a new class of mobile sensing systems. For ef-ficient operation, such systems must adapt to dynamic en-vironments, cope with uncertainty in sensing and control, and operate with limited resources. We propose a novel sys-tem architecture based on a hive-drone model that simpli-fies the functionality of an individual MAV to a sequence of sensing and actuation commands with no in-field com-munication. This decision simplifies the hardware and soft-ware complexity of individual MAVs and moves the com-plexity of coordination entirely to a central hive computer. We present Karma, a system for programming and manag-ing MAV swarms. Through simulation and testbed experi-ments we demonstrate how applications in Karma can run on limited resources, are robust to individual MAV failure, and adapt to changes in the environment