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] 1
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

Sensor data

Control

system

World model

Actions
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/91-01-00
34.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.
Sinas Video

CS225B Kurt Konolige

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
QRIO Navigation

CS225B Kurt Konolige

 Darpa Grand Challenge

Stanley is based on a VW Touareg R5

with 7 Pentium M computers
incorporating measurements from
GPS, INS, and wheel speed for
pose estimation.

Standford's Stanley “racing car” The environment is perceived through

4 laser range finders, a radar system,
a stereo camera pair, and a monocular
vision system. Sensor data is processed
at 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.
Sample tracking visualization
Darpa Grand Challenge Video

Courtesy Sebastian Thrun, Stanford University

Darpa Learning Applied to Ground
Robotics
• Autonomous outdoor vehicle in
unstructured environments
• Main sensor is stereo vision
• Learn models of terrain
traversability

Stanford Mausoleum Run

Robot-view Interpretation

Global Map
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 Indoor, wheeled,
• Complex world model and reasoning static blocks world

Reactive Paradigm (mid-80’s)

Static legged motion,
• No models: “the world is the model”
robot swarms,
• Simple sense-act functions
reactive
• Emergent behavior

Complex environments,
Hybrid Architectures (90’s)
mapping and localization,
• Models at higher levels, reactive at lower levels
human-robot interactions
• Mid-level executive to sequence actions

Challenging outdoor
Probabilistic Methods (mid-90’s) environments
• Uncertain sensing and acting Air, water vehicles
• Integration of models, sensing, acting Dynamic legged motion