Robert T. McDonald
Papers
6
Total Citations
28
H-Index
3
About
Robert T. McDonald is a robotics researcher specializing in multirobot systems, adaptive navigation, and autonomous environmental sensing. His work sits at the intersection of swarm robotics and real-world scientific applications, focusing on how coordinated robot clusters can intelligently explore and characterize complex environments without predefined paths. McDonald's most significant contributions involve developing multirobot adaptive navigation techniques that allow robotic systems to make real-time movement decisions based on live environmental measurements. His 2020 study on navigating scalar fronts — transition regions defined by steep environmental gradients — demonstrated these capabilities in both simulation and physical experiment, earning 10 citations alongside his foundational 2018 work establishing a low-cost indoor testbed that made such research more accessible to the broader community. He has further extended this framework to vector fields, saddle points, ridges, and trenches, showcasing the versatility of his approach across diverse environmental features. Beyond navigation algorithms, McDonald has contributed tools for the field itself, including a robotics simulator designed specifically for developing and verifying swarm behaviors. With a cumulative citation count approaching 30 across his recent publications, his research provides both theoretical grounding and practical infrastructure for autonomous environmental monitoring — work with clear implications for oceanography, pollution tracking, and large-scale scientific data collection.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1
- 2A low-cost indoor testbed for multirobot adaptive navigation research10 citations · 2018
- 3
- 4Robotics Simulator for Development and Verification of Swarm Behaviors2 citations · 2019
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- 6