Project Details

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Agents on a Wire

Company: Honda Research Institute

Major(s):
Primary: CMPEN
Secondary: CMPSC
Optional: EE

Non-Disclosure Agreement: NO

Intellectual Property: NO

Most AI agent research runs in the cloud where computing power is effectively unlimited. Real robots and drones do not have that luxury. This project challenges students to take an existing embedded platform, such as a small drone or single-board computer, and deploy an AI agent that runs entirely on the device itself. Students will then design the architecture and collaboration behaviors that allow two or more of these systems to coordinate on a shared task while operating under tight compute, power, and connectivity constraints. Along the way, students will gain hands-on experience with on-device inference, runtime design, multi-agent coordination protocols including task allocation and messaging, behavior architectures, and building robustness into systems that must operate with intermittent or low-bandwidth communication. Deliverables include an embedded or drone platform running an on-device agent, a collaboration architecture specification and implementation for at least two coordinating units, a live demonstration of a coordinated multi-unit task, and a written analysis of the compute, power, and communication trade-offs encountered during development.