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Autonomous Robots

Key questions in mobile robotics What is around me? Where am I ? Where am I going ? How do I get there ?

Alternatively, these questions correspond to Sensor Interpretation: what objects are there in the vicinity? Localization: find your own position in a map (given or built

autonomously) Map building: how to integrate sensor information and your own

movement? Path planning: decide the actions to perform for reaching a target position

[Many following robot slides courtesy Steffen Gutmann, SONY Labs]

Robotics Yesterday

Current Trends in Robotics

Robots are moving away from factory floors to Entertainment robots Personal services Medical, surgery Industrial automation

(mining, harvesting, ...) Hazardous environments

(space, underwater) Military

UGV, UAV, AUV Transitioning from remote control to autonomous control

Robotics Today

AI View on Mobile Robotics

Control

system

Sensor data

Actions

World model

Helpmate

HELPMATE is a mobile robot used in hospitals for transportation tasks. It has various on board sensors for autonomous navigation in the corridors. The main sensor for localization is a camera looking to the ceiling. It can detect the lamps on the ceiling as reference (landmark).

http://statusreports-atp.nist.gov/reports/91-01-0034.htm

Cleaning Robot - Sinas

Autonomous cleaning robot with Sinas navigation system (developed by Siemens) and manifactured by Karcher. The robot is equipped with several sonar sensors, a laser range finder and a gyroscope.

CS225B Kurt Konolige

Sinas Video

ROV Tiburon Underwater Robot

Picture of robot ROV Tiburon for underwater archaeology (teleoperated)- used by MBARI for deep-sea research, this UAV provides autonomous hovering capabilities for the human operator.

Sojourner, First Robot on Mars

The mobile robot Sojourner was used during the Pathfinder mission to explore the mars in summer 1997.

It was nearly fully teleoperated from earth. However, some on board sensors allowed for obstacle detection.

http://ranier.oact.hq.nasa.gov/telerobotics_page/telerobotics.shtm

The B21 Robot

B21 of Real World Interface is a sophisticated mobile robot with up to three Intel Pentium processors on board. It has all different kinds of on board sensors for high performance navigation tasks.

Minerva (CMU + Univ. Bonn, 1998)

Courtesy Sebastian Thrun, CMU

Pioneer 1

PIONEER 1 is a modular mobile robot offering various options like a gripper or an on board camera. It is equipped with a sophisticated navigation library developed at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) and manifactured by ActivMedia Robotics http://www.mobilerobots.com/

RoboCup – Middle Size League

Emotional Robots: Kismet

Courtesy Cynthia Breazeal, MIT

Sony's AIBO Robot

First model (1998)

Latest model ERS 7 (2004)

RoboCup 4-legged League

The Honda Walking Robot Asimo

http://www.honda.co.jp/robot/

Sony's QRIO Robot

CS225B Kurt Konolige

QRIO Navigation

Darpa Grand Challenge

Standford's Stanley “racing car”

Sample tracking visualization

Stanley is based on a VW Touareg R5with 7 Pentium M computers incorporating measurements from GPS, INS, and wheel speed for pose estimation.

The environment is perceived through4 laser range finders, a radar system,a stereo camera pair, and a monocularvision system. Sensor data is processedat rates between 10 and 100 Hertz. Map and pose information are incorporated at 10 Hz, enabling Stanley to avoid collisions with obstacles in real-time while advancing along the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge route.

Darpa Grand Challenge Video

Courtesy Sebastian Thrun, Stanford University

Darpa Learning Applied to Ground Robotics

Stanford Mausoleum Run

Robot-view Interpretation

Global Map

• Autonomous outdoor vehicle in unstructured environments• Main sensor is stereo vision• Learn models of terrain traversability

BigDog: Quadruped Beast of Burden

• Autonomous outdoor vehicle in unstructured environments• Internal sensors only

Video from Boston Dynamics

PR2: Willow Garage

• Domestic robot operating among people• Wheeled base for stability• Two gravity-balanced arms for manipulation• Acceleration of robot adoption through reliable hardware and software• ROS software effort

Video from Willow Garage

Trends in Robotics Research

Classical AI Robotics (mid-70’s)• Sense-Plan-Act• Complex world model and reasoning

Reactive Paradigm (mid-80’s)• No models: “the world is the model”• Simple sense-act functions• Emergent behavior

Hybrid Architectures (90’s)• Models at higher levels, reactive at lower levels• Mid-level executive to sequence actions

Probabilistic Methods (mid-90’s)• Uncertain sensing and acting• Integration of models, sensing, acting

Indoor, wheeled, static blocks world

Static legged motion,robot swarms,reactive

Complex environments,mapping and localization,human-robot interactions

Challenging outdoor environmentsAir, water vehiclesDynamic legged motion