Today: Classic & AI Control Wednesday: Image Processing/Vision Intelligent Robotics Today: Classic & AI Control Wednesday: Image Processing/Vision CoWorker by iRobot Corporation http://www.irobot.com/industrial/coworker.asp

Robot: Movement, Sensing, Reasoning What will it manipulate? How will it move? (ME) What situations does it need to sense? (Sensor Suite) (ECE) How does it decide what actions to take? (CS)

What does it take to get an intelligent robot to do a simple task? Robot Parts: Two Arms, Vision, and Brain The Brain can communicate with all parts Arms can take commands as left, right, up, down, forward, and backward Arms can answer yes/no about whether they are touching something but cannot distinguish what they are touching The vision system can answer any question the brain asks, but cannot volunteer information. The vision system can move around to get a better view.

Why is this simple task so difficult? Coordination is difficult Indirect feedback Updating knowledge about the environment Unexpected events Need to re-plan Different coordinate systems need to be resolved Box-centered and arm-centered

The Real World is A Harsh Place Inaccessible near by stimuli, limited attention, imperfect sensors Non-deterministic Robot structure and dynamics, environment Dynamic Changes happening as decisions are made Continuous The worlds is not a set of discrete events

Dealing with the Physical World A robot needs to be able to handle its environment or the environment must be altered and controlled. Close World Assumption The robot knows everything relevant to performing it task: “Complete World Model” no surprises Open World Assumption The robot does not assume complete knowledge The robot must be able to handle unexpected events.

Deliberative/Hierarchical Robot Control Emphasizes Planning Robot senses the world, constructs a model representation of the world, “shuts its eyes”, creates a plan of action, makes the action, then senses the results of the action.

Reactive/Behavior-Based Control Sense Act Ignores world models “The world is its own best model” Tightly couples perceptions to actions No intervening abstract representations Primitive Behaviors are used as building blocks Individual behaviors can be made up of primitive behaviors Reactive: no memory Behavior-Based: Short Term Memory (STM)

Behavior Coordination If multiple behaviors are possible which one does the robot do?

Where does the overall robot behavior come from? No planning, goal is generally not explicit Emergent Behavior Overall behavior is a result of robots interaction with its surroundings and the coordination between the individual behaviors. Emergence is the appearance of a novel property of a whole system that cannot be explained by examining the individual components, for example the wetness of water.

Hybrid Paradigm Combines Reactive and Deliberative Control Planner Act Sense Act

Spectrum of AI Robot Control