Ben Rossano

I’m a PhD student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where I am co-advised by Nick Roy and Leslie Kaelbling. My research focuses on task and motion planning in a world of large pretrained models and how the structure of classical planning can be combined with the commonsense knowledge these models bring.

Previously, I completed my Master’s degree working with Jonathan How on multi-robot coordination in unknown and uncertain environments. Before that, I earned my B.S. in Robotics from the University of Michigan (Go Blue!).

In my free time, I enjoy music, sports, and travelling. Check out my pop/rock cover band, Seldom Chalant!

news

Sep 15, 2026	Our paper Communication-Constrained Multi-Robot Exploration With Adaptive Communication Windows was accepted to the IROS 2026 Workshop and Competition on Intelligent Information Gathering for Single and Multi-Robot Systems 🎉
Jun 16, 2026	Our paper Uncertainty-Aware Multi-Robot Task Allocation With Strongly Coupled Inter-Robot Rewards was accepted to IROS 2026 🎉

publications

Communication-Constrained Multi-Robot Exploration With Adaptive Communication Windows

Ben Rossano, Jaein Lim, and Jonathan P. How

IROS 2026 Workshop on Intelligent Information Gathering for Single and Multi-Robot Systems, 2026

Paper Bib

A decentralized exploration framework that uses adaptive communication windows to balance information sharing with exploration progress.

@article{rossano2026communication,
  title = {Communication-Constrained Multi-Robot Exploration With Adaptive Communication Windows},
  author = {Rossano, Ben and Lim, Jaein and How, Jonathan P.},
  journal = {arXiv preprint arXiv:2609.12502},
  year = {2026},
  note = {Accepted to the Workshop and Competition on Intelligent Information Gathering for Single and Multi-Robot Systems at IROS 2026},
}

Uncertainty-Aware Multi-Robot Task Allocation With Strongly Coupled Inter-Robot Rewards

Ben Rossano, Jaein Lim, and Jonathan P. How

IROS, 2026

Paper Bib

An auction-based allocation framework for heterogeneous robot teams when task requirements are uncertain.

@article{rossano2026uncertainty,
  title = {Uncertainty-Aware Multi-Robot Task Allocation With Strongly Coupled Inter-Robot Rewards},
  author = {Rossano, Ben and Lim, Jaein and How, Jonathan P.},
  journal = {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.22469},
  year = {2026},
}