Download Artificial Intelligence and Mobile Robots: Successes

Artificial Intelligence and Mobile
Robots: Successes and Challenges
David Kortenkamp
NASA Johnson Space Center
Metrica Inc./TRACLabs
Houton TX 77058
[email protected]
http://www.traclabs.com/~korten
Outline
• Where we’ve been
– Previous mobile robot competitions
– Contributions to the state-of-the-art
• Where we are
– Status checklist
– Challenges to the AI community
• Where we are going
– 2000 Mobile Robot Competition and Exhibition
The First AAAI Mobile Robot
Competition (San Jose CA 1992)
• Large arena with fixed obstacles
• Robot needed to find and visit 10 poles
• Teams could mark poles in any way
they wanted
• Contributions
– Sonar-based obstacle avoidance
• Assessment
– Robots could move w/o hitting things
– Robots could find large, marked objects
Second AAAI Mobile Robot
Competition (DC, 1993)
• Office-like environment
• Robots modifying environment
• Contributions
– Three-layer architecture (Erann Gat, JPL)
• Assessment
– Office navigation still unsolved
– Start of real-world tasks
Third AAAI Mobile Robot
Competition (Seattle, 1994)
• Office building environment is continued
• Mobile manipulation is introduced
• Contributions
– Successful multi-robot strategy (Georgia Tech)
– Probabilistic office navigation (Stanford)
• Assessment
– Office navigation more robust
– Distributed multi-robots are fast
Fourth AAAI Mobile Robot
Competition (Montreal, 1995)
• Office navigation is extended with human
interaction
• Mobile manipulation with ability to distinguish
objects (trash vs. recycle)
• Contributions
– Color vision
– Wheelchair applications
• Assessment
– Non-trivial vision becomes possible
Fifth AAAI Mobile Robot
Competition (Portland, 1996)
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Office navigation with occupancy detection
Mobile manipulation of moving objects
Alan Alda!
Contributions
– Fast color vision
– POMDP navigation techniques
• Assessment
– Office navigation is solved
Sixth AAAI Mobile Robot
Competition (Providence, 1997)
• Real-world tasks (vacuuming, search)
• Direct interaction with AAAI attendees (serving
hors d’oeuvres)
• Contributions
– Multi-media interfaces
– Entertaining robots
• Assessment
– Human-robot interaction still young
Seventh AAAI Mobile Robot
Competition (Madison WI, 1998)
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Robots move out of the arena
Hors d’oeuvres is continued
Sony robot “dogs” make appearance
Contributions
– AAAI Best Paper to Thrun et al for
museum tour robot based on software
displayed in previous competitions
• Assessment
– Human-robot interaction making progress
Eighth AAAI Mobile Robot
Competition (Orlando, 1999)
• No arena at all, robots roam through
conference hall on scavenger hunts
• Hors d’oeuvres competition a big hit
• Contributions
– Introduced a “challenge” competition
• Assessment
– Continued improvement in hors
d’oeuvres serving
Y2K: Where are we?
• What is the current state-of-the-art?
• What are the remaining challenges?
CMU and NASA take the
Nomad mobile robot to
Antarctica in January 2000
to search for meteorites
Mapping and Navigation
• State-of-the-art
üObstacle avoidance
üOffice building navigation
üPublic navigation (with assistance)
üMap construction (including 3D) using sonar and laser
• Challenges
•Outdoor navigation (even with GPS)
•Vision-based navigation
Robot Vision
• State-of-the-art
üColor vision for object recognition
üObstacle avoidance and cliff detection
üAutonomous highway driving
üActive stereo vision for tracking
• Challenges
•Object segmentation
•Robust landmark discovery and
recognition
Mobile Manipulation
• State-of-the-art
üStand-alone manipulators on mobile bases
üUncoordinated base and arm motion
• Challenges
•Coordinated base and arm motion
•Multi-arm robots
•Eye-hand coordination
Human-Robot Interaction
• State-of-the-art
üSimple tracking and gesture recognition
üFace recognition under ideal
circumstances
üCOTS voice recognition
• Challenges
•Discourse management tied to task
context
•Learning from humans
•Adjustable autonomy
Control Architectures
• State-of-the-art
üLayered architectures to integrate reactive and
deliberative components
üRobust execution of procedures
• Challenges
•Architectures with learning “built-in”
•Sharing components (“plug and play”)
•Adjustable autonomy
•Validation and verification
Multiple Robots
• State-of-the-art
üHomogeneous robots
üDivide-and-conquer tasks
• Challenges
•Architectures for coordination of autonomous,
heterogeneous robots
•“On-the-fly” teaming of robots
•Distributed sensing
•Tasks that require multiple robots
Challenges to the AI Community
• Planning
– Planners that can “take advantage” of
underlying robust execution systems
– Mixed-initiative planning with robots
• Learning
– Fast, on-line learners that handle uncertainty
– Improving off-line models from data
• Natural Language
– Discourse tied to task contexts and agent
actions
Challenges (continued)
• Knowledge Representation
– Representing perceptual information
– Moving knowledge between continuous and
discrete (or symbolic) representations
• Applications
– Apply known mobile robot results to other
domains that have similar characteristics, I.e.,
“immobots” (Williams & Nayak 1996)
– Use mobile robots!
The 2000 AAAI Mobile Robot
Contest and Exhibition
• Goals
– Foster the sharing of research ideas and
technology
– Allow research groups to showcase their
achievements
– Encourage students to enter the fields of
robots and AI
– Increase awareness of the field
• Alan Schultz, Chair
Events
• Contest
– Urban Search and Rescue
– Hors d’oeuvres
– Lisa Meeden, Event Chair
• Challenge
– Tucker Balch, Event Chair
• Exhibition
– Marc Bohlen and Vandi Verma, Event
Chairs
• Plus, Botball and Robot Building Lab
Urban Search and Rescue
• Robots must enter fallen structure
and search for victims
• Robots judged on
– Number of victims found
– Relaying location of victims and
hazards
– Communicating with victims
– Innovative technology
• No teleoperation
Hors d’oeuvres
• Robots serve hors d’oeuvres to conference
attendees at the reception
• Robots judged subjectively by a panel for:
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Ability to serve food
Interaction with attendees
Manipulation
Sensing modes
Challenge
• Robot must register and attend AAAI with
no a priori information
• Judges will look for technical innovation
• Components include:
– Start at front door
– Navigate to registration (look at signs or ask
directions)
– Register (stand in line, say name)
– Attend talk
• Task pushes state-of-the-art
Exhibition
• Demonstrations of robot technology that
does not fit within the contests
• Scheduled demonstration times
• Exhibition themes include:
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Learning by imitation (USC)
Learning by observation (Georgia Tech)
Multi-robot negotiation
Interaction with humans
Intelligent wheelchairs (U Texas)
Enabling technologies
Botball
• High school robotics building and
programming competition
– Over 150 teams participated
• Finals held at AAAI-2000
– 46 high school teams competing
– August 1 and 2 (finals at 3:00)
• Organized by David Miller of the
KISS Institute for Practical Robotics
and the University of Oklahoma
Sponsors
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DARPA
Office of Naval Research
Naval Research Laboratory
AAAI