Michael J. S. Pelican

Papers

Total Citations

103

H-Index

About

Michael J. S. Pelican is a leading researcher in multi-robot systems and autonomous agent coordination, with a focus on enabling practical, human-supervised deployments of robot teams. His seminal 2002 paper on the coordinated deployment of multiple, heterogeneous robots (70 citations) established foundational methods for managing the complexity and interference inherent in multi-robot operations, emphasizing the need for autonomy balanced with intuitive human control. Pelican is also the architect of MACBeth, a Multi-Agent Constraint-Based Planner introduced in 2000 (28 citations) and refined in 2003. MACBeth revolutionized tactical planning for autonomous agent teams by prioritizing rapid, accurate adaptation of existing plans over novel plan generation—a critical capability for time-sensitive missions. This work directly addresses the challenge of enabling human operators to quickly specify and adjust missions for robot teams in dynamic environments. Pelican’s contributions bridge the gap between theoretical multi-agent planning and real-world robotic applications, making him a key figure in the advancement of deployable, heterogeneous robot teams for search, rescue, and surveillance operations.