An autonomous robot is a robot that acts without recourse to human control. Historic examples include space probes. Modern examples include self-driving vacuums and cars.
Industrial robot arms that work on assembly lines inside factories may also be considered autonomous robots, though their autonomy is restricted due to a highly structured environment and their inability to locomote.
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The first requirement for complete physical autonomy is the ability for a robot to take care of itself. Many of the battery-powered robots on the market today can find and connect to a charging station, and some toys like Sony's Aibo are capable of self-docking to charge their batteries.
Self-maintenance is based on "proprioception", or sensing one's own internal status. In the battery charging example, the robot can tell proprioceptively that its batteries are low, and it then seeks the charger. Another common proprioceptive sensor is for heat monitoring. Increased proprioception will be required for robots to work autonomously near people and in harsh environments. Common proprioceptive sensors include thermal, optical, and haptic sensing, as well as the Hall effect (electric).
Exteroception is sensing things about the environment. Autonomous robots must have a range of environmental sensors to perform their task and stay out of trouble. The autonomous robot can recognize sensor failures and minimize the impact on the performance caused by failures. [1]
Some robotic lawn mowers will adapt their programming by detecting the speed in which grass grows as needed to maintain a perfectly cut lawn, and some vacuum cleaning robots have dirt detectors that sense how much dirt is being picked up and use this information to tell them to stay in one area longer.
The next step in autonomous behavior is to actually perform a physical task. A new area showing commercial promise is domestic robots, with a flood of small vacuuming robots beginning with iRobot and Electrolux in 2002. While the level of intelligence is not high in these systems, they navigate over wide areas and pilot in tight situations around homes using contact and non-contact sensors. Both of these robots use proprietary algorithms to increase coverage over simple random bounce.
The next level of autonomous task performance requires a robot to perform conditional tasks. For instance, security robots can be programmed to detect intruders and respond in a particular way depending upon where the intruder is. For example, Amazon (company) launched its Astro for home monitoring, security and eldercare in September 2021. [2]
For a robot to associate behaviors with a place (localization) requires it to know where it is and to be able to navigate point-to-point. Such navigation began with wire-guidance in the 1970s and progressed in the early 2000s to beacon-based triangulation. Current commercial robots autonomously navigate based on sensing natural features. The first commercial robots to achieve this were Pyxus' HelpMate hospital robot and the CyberMotion guard robot, both designed by robotics pioneers in the 1980s. These robots originally used manually created CAD floor plans, sonar sensing and wall-following variations to navigate buildings. The next generation, such as MobileRobots' PatrolBot and autonomous wheelchair, [3] both introduced in 2004, have the ability to create their own laser-based maps of a building and to navigate open areas as well as corridors. Their control system changes its path on the fly if something blocks the way.
At first, autonomous navigation was based on planar sensors, such as laser range-finders, that can only sense at one level. The most advanced systems now fuse information from various sensors for both localization (position) and navigation. Systems such as Motivity can rely on different sensors in different areas, depending upon which provides the most reliable data at the time, and can re-map a building autonomously.
Rather than climb stairs, which requires highly specialized hardware, most indoor robots navigate handicapped-accessible areas, controlling elevators, and electronic doors. [4] With such electronic access-control interfaces, robots can now freely navigate indoors. Autonomously climbing stairs and opening doors manually are topics of research at the current time.
As these indoor techniques continue to develop, vacuuming robots will gain the ability to clean a specific user-specified room or a whole floor. Security robots will be able to cooperatively surround intruders and cut off exits. These advances also bring concomitant protections: robots' internal maps typically permit "forbidden areas" to be defined to prevent robots from autonomously entering certain regions.
Outdoor autonomy is most easily achieved in the air, since obstacles are rare. Cruise missiles are rather dangerous highly autonomous robots. Pilotless drone aircraft are increasingly used for reconnaissance. Some of these unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are capable of flying their entire mission without any human interaction at all except possibly for the landing where a person intervenes using radio remote control. Some drones are capable of safe, automatic landings, however. SpaceX operates a number of Autonomous spaceport drone ships, used to safely land and recover Falcon 9 rockets at sea. [5]
Outdoor autonomy is the most difficult for ground vehicles, due to:
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There are several open problems in autonomous robotics which are special to the field rather than being a part of the general pursuit of AI. According to George A. Bekey's Autonomous Robots: From Biological Inspiration to Implementation and Control, problems include things such as making sure the robot is able to function correctly and not run into obstacles autonomously. Reinforcement learning has been used to control and plan the navigation of autonomous robots, specifically when a group of them operate in collaboration with each other. [6]
Researchers concerned with creating true artificial life are concerned not only with intelligent control, but further with the capacity of the robot to find its own resources through foraging (looking for food, which includes both energy and spare parts).
This is related to autonomous foraging, a concern within the sciences of behavioral ecology, social anthropology, and human behavioral ecology; as well as robotics, artificial intelligence, and artificial life. [7]
As autonomous robots have grown in ability and technical levels, there has been increasing societal awareness and news coverage of the latest advances, and also some of the philosophical issues, economic effects, and societal impacts that arise from the roles and activities of autonomous robots.
Elon Musk, a prominent business executive and billionaire has warned for years of the possible hazards and pitfalls of autonomous robots; however, his own company is one of the most prominent companies that is trying to devise new advanced technologies in this area. [8]
In 2021, a United Nations group of government experts, known as the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons – Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems, held a conference to highlight the ethical concerns which arise from the increasingly advanced technology for autonomous robots to wield weapons and to play a military role. [9]
The first autonomous robots were known as Elmer and Elsie, constructed in the late 1940s by W. Grey Walter. They were the first robots programmed to "think" the way biological brains do and were meant to have free will. [10] Elmer and Elsie were often labeled as tortoises because of how they were shaped and the manner in which they moved. They were capable of phototaxis, the movement that occurs in response to light stimulus. [11]
The Mars rovers MER-A and MER-B (now known as Spirit rover and Opportunity rover) found the position of the Sun and navigated their own routes to destinations, on the fly, by:
The planned ESA Rover, Rosalind Franklin rover, is capable of vision based relative localisation and absolute localisation to autonomously navigate safe and efficient trajectories to targets by:
During the final NASA Sample Return Robot Centennial Challenge in 2016, a rover, named Cataglyphis, successfully demonstrated fully autonomous navigation, decision-making, and sample detection, retrieval, and return capabilities. [12] The rover relied on a fusion of measurements from inertial sensors, wheel encoders, Lidar, and camera for navigation and mapping, instead of using GPS or magnetometers. During the 2-hour challenge, Cataglyphis traversed over 2.6 km and returned five different samples to its starting position.
The Seekur robot was the first commercially available robot to demonstrate MDARS-like capabilities for general use by airports, utility plants, corrections facilities and Homeland Security. [13]
The DARPA Grand Challenge and DARPA Urban Challenge have encouraged development of even more autonomous capabilities for ground vehicles, while this has been the demonstrated goal for aerial robots since 1990 as part of the AUVSI International Aerial Robotics Competition.
Between 2013 and 2017, TotalEnergies has held the ARGOS Challenge to develop the first autonomous robot for oil and gas production sites. The robots had to face adverse outdoor conditions such as rain, wind and extreme temperatures. [14]
Some significant current robots include:
Lethal autonomous weapons (LAWs) are a type of autonomous robot military system that can independently search for and engage targets based on programmed constraints and descriptions. [23] LAWs are also known as lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS), autonomous weapon systems (AWS), robotic weapons, killer robots or slaughterbots. [24] LAWs may operate in the air, on land, on water, under water, or in space. The autonomy of current systems as of 2018 [update] was restricted in the sense that a human gives the final command to attack – though there are exceptions with certain "defensive" systems.
Tesla Robot and NVIDIA GR00T are humanoid robots.
A delivery robot is an autonomous robot used for delivering goods.
An Automatic Charging Robot, unveiled on July 27, 2022, is an arm-shaped automatic charging robot, charging an electric vehicle. It has been running a pilot operation at Hyundai Motor Group's headquarters since 2021. VISION AI System based on deep learning technology has been applied. When an electric vehicle is parked in front of the charger, the robot arm recognizes the charger of the electric vehicle and derives coordinates. And automatically insert a connector into the electric car and operate fast charging. The robot arm is configured in a vertical multi-joint structure so that it can be applied to chargers at different locations for each vehicle. In addition, waterproof and dustproof functions are applied. [45]
Construction robots are used directly on job sites and perform work such as building, material handling, earthmoving, and surveillance.
Research and education mobile robots are mainly used during a prototyping phase in the process of building full scale robots. They are a scaled down version of bigger robots with the same types of sensors, kinematics and software stack (e.g. ROS). They are often extendable and provide comfortable programming interface and development tools. Next to full scale robot prototyping they are also used for education, especially at university level, where more and more labs about programming autonomous vehicles are being introduced.
In March 2016, a bill was introduced in Washington, D.C., allowing pilot ground robotic deliveries. [46] The program was to take place from September 15 through the end of December 2017. The robots were limited to a weight of 50 pounds unloaded and a maximum speed of 10 miles per hour. In case the robot stopped moving because of malfunction the company was required to remove it from the streets within 24 hours. There were allowed only 5 robots to be tested per company at a time. [47] A 2017 version of the Personal Delivery Device Act bill was under review as of March 2017. [48]
In February 2017, a bill was passed in the US state of Virginia via the House bill, HB2016, [49] and the Senate bill, SB1207, [50] that will allow autonomous delivery robots to travel on sidewalks and use crosswalks statewide beginning on July 1, 2017. The robots will be limited to a maximum speed of 10 mph and a maximum weight of 50 pounds. [51] In the states of Idaho and Florida there are also talks about passing the similar legislature. [52] [53]
It has been discussed[ by whom? ] that robots with similar characteristics to invalid carriages (e.g. 10 mph maximum, limited battery life) might be a workaround for certain classes of applications. If the robot was sufficiently intelligent and able to recharge itself using the existing electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure it would only need minimal supervision and a single arm with low dexterity might be enough to enable this function if its visual systems had enough resolution.[ citation needed ]
In November 2017, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors announced that companies would need to get a city permit in order to test these robots. [54] In addition, the Board banned sidewalk delivery robots from making non-research deliveries. [55]
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs were originally developed through the twentieth century for military missions too "dull, dirty or dangerous" for humans, and by the twenty-first, they had become essential assets to most militaries. As control technologies improved and costs fell, their use expanded to many non-military applications. These include aerial photography, area coverage, precision agriculture, forest fire monitoring, river monitoring, environmental monitoring, policing and surveillance, infrastructure inspections, smuggling, product deliveries, entertainment, and drone racing.
Military robots are autonomous robots or remote-controlled mobile robots designed for military applications, from transport to search & rescue and attack.
A micro air vehicle (MAV), or micro aerial vehicle, is a class of man-portable miniature UAVs whose size enables them to be used in low-altitude, close-in support operations. Modern MAVs can be as small as 5 centimeters - compare Nano Air Vehicle. Development is driven by commercial, research, government, and military organizations; with insect-sized aircraft reportedly expected in the future. The small craft allow remote observation of hazardous environments or of areas inaccessible to ground vehicles. Hobbyists have designed MAVs for applications such as aerial robotics contests and aerial photography. MAVs can offer autonomous modes of flight.
Swarm robotics is an approach to the coordination of multiple robots as a system which consist of large numbers of mostly simple physical robots. In a robot swarm, the collective behavior of the robots results from local interactions between the robots and between the robots and the environment in which they act. It is supposed that a desired collective behavior emerges from the interactions between the robots and interactions of robots with the environment. This idea emerged on the field of artificial swarm intelligence, as well as the studies of insects, ants and other fields in nature, where swarm behaviour occurs.
An unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) is a vehicle that operates while in contact with the ground without an onboard human presence. UGVs can be used for many applications where it is inconvenient, dangerous, expensive, or impossible to use an onboard human operator. Typically, the vehicle has sensors to observe the environment, and autonomously controls its behavior or uses a remote human operator to control the vehicle via teleoperation.
A mobile robot is an automatic machine that is capable of locomotion. Mobile robotics is usually considered to be a subfield of robotics and information engineering.
TerraMax is the trademark for autonomous/unmanned ground vehicle technology developed by Oshkosh Defense. Primary military uses for the technology are seen as reconnaissance missions and freight transport in high-risk areas without the need of human operators, protecting the soldiers from possible attacks, ambushes or the threat of mines and IEDs. The technology could also be used in civilian settings, such as autonomous snow clearing at airports.
Squad Mission Support System is an unmanned all terrain wheeled vehicle developed by Lockheed Martin.
An uncrewed vehicle or unmanned vehicle is a vehicle without a person on board. Uncrewed vehicles can either be under telerobotic control—remote controlled or remote guided vehicles—or they can be autonomously controlled—autonomous vehicles—which are capable of sensing their environment and navigating on their own.
Guardium, developed by G-NIUS, is an Israeli unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) used by the Israel Defense Forces along Gaza's border. It was jointly developed by Israel Aerospace Industries and Elbit Industries. It can be used in either tele-operated or autonomous mode. Both modes do not require human interaction. The more unmanned ground vehicles patrolling the area the less human resources needed while guaranteeing deterrence. The joint program was terminated in April 2016, but the vehicle has remained in service with the IDF.
The Ripsaw is a series of developmental unmanned ground combat vehicles designed by Howe & Howe Technologies for evaluation by the United States Army.
The Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System (MAARS) is a robot that is being developed by Qinetiq. A member of the TALON family, it will be the successor to the armed SWORDS robot. It has a different, larger chassis than the SWORDS robot, so has little physically in common with the SWORDS and TALON
The Learning Applied to Ground Vehicles (LAGR) program, which ran from 2004 until 2008, had the goal of accelerating progress in autonomous, perception-based, off-road navigation in robotic unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). LAGR was funded by DARPA, a research agency of the United States Department of Defense.
The National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC) is an operating unit within the Robotics Institute (RI) of Carnegie Mellon University. NREC works closely with government and industry clients to apply robotic technologies to real-world processes and products, including unmanned vehicle and platform design, autonomy, sensing and image processing, machine learning, manipulation, and human–robot interaction.
An autonomous aircraft is an aircraft which flies under the control of on-board autonomous robotic systems and needs no intervention from a human pilot or remote control. Most contemporary autonomous aircraft are unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) with pre-programmed algorithms to perform designated tasks, but advancements in artificial intelligence technologies mean that autonomous control systems are reaching a point where several air taxis and associated regulatory regimes are being developed.
UGV Interoperability Profile (UGV IOP), Robotics and Autonomous Systems – Ground IOP (RAS-G IOP) or simply IOP was originally an initiative started by the United States Department of Defense (DoD) to organize and maintain open architecture interoperability standards for Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV). A primary goal of this initiative is to leverage existing and emerging standards within the Unmanned Vehicle (UxV) community such as the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) AS-4 Joint Architecture for Unmanned Systems (JAUS) standard and the Army Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Project Office IOPs.
The Robotics Collaborative Technology Alliance (R-CTA) was a research program initiated and sponsored by the US Army Research Laboratory. The purpose was to "bring together government, industrial, and academic institutions to address research and development required to enable the deployment of future military unmanned ground vehicle systems ranging in size from man-portables to ground combat vehicles." Collaborative Technology and Research Alliances was a term for partnerships between Army laboratories and centers, private industry and academia for performing research and technology development intended to benefit the US Army. The partnerships were funded by the US Army.
THeMIS, unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), is a ground-based armed drone vehicle designed largely for military applications, and is built by Milrem Robotics in Estonia. The vehicle is intended to provide support for dismounted troops by serving as a transport platform, remote weapon station, IED detection and disposal unit etc.
Integrated Modular Unmanned Ground System (UGS or iMUGS) is a European Union's Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) project that aims to create a European standard unmanned ground system and develop scalable modular architecture for hybrid manned-unmanned systems, as well as increasing interoperability, situational awareness and speeding up decision making. The project is coordinated by Estonia, with 10 other European countries participating. It will use Milrem's existing THeMIS unmanned ground vehicle for different payloads.
Brave1 is a Government of Ukraine platform to bring together innovative companies with ideas and developments that can be used in the defense of Ukraine, launched on 26 April 2023.
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