SwisTrack: A Tracking Tool for Multi-Unit Robotic and Biological Systems

The EPFL Swarm-Intelligent Systems Group have released a video of their SwisTrack that I already mentioned in Collaborative, GPS-free Techniques for Localization in Miniature Robots.

Tracking of miniature robotic platforms involves major challenges in image recognition and data association. We present our 2.5 years effort into developing a platform-independent, easy to use, and robust tracking software SwisTrack, which is tailored to research in swarm robotics and behavioral biology. We demonstrate the software and algorithm abilities using two case studies, tracking of a swarm of cockroaches, and a swarm-robotic inspection task, while outlining hard problems in tracking and data-association of marker-less objects.

Relation to my thesis: I am interested in different approaches to analyze activities in space. SwisTrack is an excellent example of the challenges and what can be done in a miniature controlled environment.