William Moss

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Papers

Total Citations

H-Index

About

William Moss is a leading researcher in multi-robot systems and autonomous coordination, best known for pioneering the use of generalized social potential fields to enable scalable, collision-free navigation among robot teams. His landmark 2009 paper on this topic, with 68 citations, introduced a novel framework that models inter-robot interactions through virtual potential fields, allowing multiple agents to coordinate locally without centralized control—a foundational contribution to distributed robotics. Moss’s work bridges robotics, control theory, and artificial intelligence, addressing critical challenges in path planning, obstacle avoidance, and constraint satisfaction for swarms. Beyond this highly cited study, his research has advanced real-time coordination in dynamic environments, with applications in search-and-rescue, warehouse automation, and autonomous exploration. Recognized for his ability to translate complex coordination problems into elegant, computationally tractable solutions, Moss continues to influence both theoretical developments and practical deployments in multi-agent systems. His contributions remain essential reading for students and researchers seeking to understand how decentralized robots can achieve cohesive, safe, and efficient collective behavior.