Vici grant awarded to Prof. Ming Cao

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded a Vici grant to Prof. Ming Cao, worth up to €1.5 million. With this money Prof. Cao can develop an innovative line of research in the field of the decision making process of autonomous robots. He will be able to set up his own research group for a period of five years.

Awarded research conducted by Professor of Networks and Robots Ming Cao (Faculty of Science and Engineering) concerns the decision making process of autonomous robots. With autonomous machines becoming ubiquitous in industry and daily life, we should be able to control the way these systems make decisions. This project draws inspiration from social animals (biology), competitive human behaviors (marketing), and collective opinion formation (sociology). Employing a multi-disciplinary approach, we will improve decision-making processes of autonomous robots working in teams, especially when they are frequently influenced by stochastic perturbations. The project will improve the control of autonomous robots, broaden the application of robot teams, and benefit smart factories and digital societies in the long run.

NWO Talent Scheme

NWO’s Talent Scheme consists of the Vici, Veni and Vidi grants. The Vici grant targets senior researchers who have successfully demonstrated the ability to develop their own innovative lines of research. In doing so, they have also supervised young researchers.

The NWO has awarded a total of 34 Vici grants, four of which to researchers from the UG and he UMCG. The other three are UG researchers Prof. Marleen Kamperman (Faculty of Science and Engineering) and Prof. Lisa Herzog (Faculty of Philosophy) and UMCG researcher Prof. Floris Foijer.

Read the UG news release here.