1. 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]

2. Robotics Yesterday

3. 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

4. Robotics Today

5. AI View on Mobile Robotics
Sensor data
Control system
World model
Actions

6. 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).
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7. 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.

8. Sinas Video
CS225B Kurt Konolige

9. 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.

10. Sojourner, First Robot on Mars
The mobile robot Sojourner was used during the Pathfinder mission to explore the mars in summer It was nearly fully teleoperated from earth. However, some on board sensors allowed for obstacle detection.

11. 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.

12. Minerva (CMU + Univ. Bonn, 1998)
Courtesy Sebastian Thrun, CMU

13. 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

14. RoboCup – Middle Size League

15. Emotional Robots: Kismet
Courtesy Cynthia Breazeal, MIT

16. Sony's AIBO Robot
First model (1998)
Latest model ERS 7 (2004)

17. RoboCup 4-legged League

18. The Honda Walking Robot Asimo

19. Sony's QRIO Robot

20. QRIO Navigation
CS225B Kurt Konolige

21. 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.
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.
Standford's Stanley “racing car”
Sample tracking visualization

22. Darpa Grand Challenge Video
Courtesy Sebastian Thrun, Stanford University

23. 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

24. BigDog: Quadruped Beast of Burden
Autonomous outdoor vehicle in unstructured environments
Internal sensors only
Video from Boston Dynamics

25. Trends in Robotics Research
Classical AI Robotics (mid-70’s)
Sense-Plan-Act
Complex world model and reasoning
Indoor, wheeled, static blocks world
Reactive Paradigm (mid-80’s)
No models: “the world is the model”
Simple sense-act functions
Emergent behavior
Static legged motion,
robot swarms,
reactive
Complex environments,
mapping and localization,
human-robot interactions
Hybrid Architectures (90’s)
Models at higher levels, reactive at lower levels
Mid-level executive to sequence actions
Challenging outdoor environments
Air, water vehicles
Dynamic legged motion
Probabilistic Methods (mid-90’s)
Uncertain sensing and acting
Integration of models, sensing, acting