Vici grant for Ming Cao

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded a Vici grant, worth up to€1.5 million, to Ming Cao. He can use this money to develop an innovative line of research and to set up his own research group for a period of five years.

Ming Cao
The awarded research conducted by Prof. Cao (Engineering and Technology institute Groningen, 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. Researchers who receive a Vici grant have the opportunity to further develop their research group, often in anticipation of a tenured professorship, if they do not already have one.