Resilient Robotics in Resource-Limited Environments: Algorithms, Design and Deployment

Rohan Nagaram

Keywords: resilient autonomy, embedded perception, communication-efficient coordination, approximate plan- ning, repairable hardware, emerging economies

Abstract:

Resource-limited environments challenge the deployment of autonomous robots.
Field robots for disaster response, smallholder agriculture and rural service deliv-
ery must operate with stringent budgets on computation, energy, communication
and sensing while facing unpredictable disturbances. We offer a concise research
agenda for resilient robotics under these constraints. After surveying energy-aware
autonomy, embedded perception, communication-efficient coordination, approxi-
mate planning and modular repairable hardware, we formalize a resource budget
model with explicit compute (C), energy (E), bandwidth (B) and sensing (S)
constraints. We define resilience as the probability of task completion under these
budgets and disturbances and propose task-level metrics linking resource budgets
to performance. We outline algorithmic design patterns for low-power percep-
tion, event-triggered communication, and compute-budgeted planning, and discuss
modular open-hardware practices that facilitate field repair. Two case snapshots
illustrate smallholder agriculture scouting and post-disaster inspection. Finally, we
propose a minimal benchmark kit and enumerate open research problems. This
agenda aims to anchor future work on practical deployments of resilient robots in
resource-limited settings.

Submission Number: 14