A review and comparison of ontology-based approaches to robot autonomy

Within the next decades, robots will need to be able to execute a large variety of tasks autonomously in a large variety of environments. To relax the resulting programming effort, a knowledge-enabled approach to robot programming can be adopted to organize information in re-usable knowledge pieces. However, for the ease of reuse, there needs to be an agreement on the meaning of terms. A common approach is to represent these terms using ontology languages that conceptualize the respective domain. In this work, we will review projects that use ontologies to support robot autonomy. We will systematically search for projects that fulfill a set of inclusion criteria and compare them with each other with respect to the scope of their ontology, what types of cognitive capabilities are supported by the use of ontologies, and which is their application domain.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Physics-, social-, and capability- based reasoning for robotic manipulation

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 124-128).Robots that can function in human-centric domains have the potential to help humans with the chores of everyday life. Moreover, dexterous robots with the ability to reason about the maneuvers they execute for manipulation tasks can function more autonomously and intelligently. This thesis outlines the development of a reasoning architecture that uses physics-, social-, and agent capability-based knowledge to generate manipulation strategies that a dexterous robot can implement in the physical world. The reasoning system learns object affordances through a combination of observations from human interactions, explicit rules and constraints imposed on the system, and hardcoded physics-based logic. Observations from humans performing manipulation tasks are also used to develop a unique manipulation repertoire suitable for the robot. The system then uses Bayesian Networks to probabilistically determine the best manipulation strategies for the robot to execute on new objects. The robot leverages this knowledge during experimental trials where manipulation strategies suggested by the reasoning architecture are shown to perform well in new manipulation environments.by Kenton J. Williams.S.M

Trajectory planning and control for robot manipulations

Comme les robots effectuent de plus en plus de tâches en interaction avec l'homme ou dans un environnement humain, ils doivent assurer la sécurité et le confort des hommes. Dans ce contexte, le robot doit adapter son comportement et agir en fonction des évolutions de l'environnement et des activités humaines. Les robots développés sur la base de l'apprentissage ou d'un planificateur de mouvement ne sont pas en mesure de réagir assez rapidement, c'est pourquoi nous proposons d'introduire un contrôleur de trajectoire intermédiaire dans l'architecture logicielle entre le contrôleur bas niveau et le planificateur de plus haut niveau. Le contrôleur de trajectoire que nous proposons est basé sur le concept de générateur de trajectoire en ligne (OTG), il permet de calculer des trajectoires en temps réel et facilite la communication entre les différents éléments, en particulier le planificateur de chemin, le générateur de trajectoire, le détecteur de collision et le contrôleur. Pour éviter de replanifier toute une trajectoire en réaction à un changement induit par un humain, notre contrôleur autorise la déformation locale de la trajectoire et la modification de la loi d'évolution pour accélérer ou décélérer le mouvement. Le contrôleur de trajectoire peut également commuter de la trajectoire initiale vers une nouvelle trajectoire. Les fonctions polynomiales cubiques que nous utilisons pour décrire les trajectoires fournissent des mouvements souples et de la flexibilité sans nécessiter de calculs complexes. De plus, les algorithmes de lissage que nous proposons permettent de produire des mouvements esthétiques ressemblants à ceux des humains. Ce travail, mené dans le cadre du projet ANR ICARO, a été intégré et validé avec les robots KUKA LWR de la plate-forme robotique du LAAS-CNRS.In order to perform a large variety of tasks in interaction with human or in human environments, a robot needs to guarantee safety and comfort for humans. In this context, the robot shall adapt its behavior and react to the environment changes and human activities. The robots based on learning or motion planning are not able to adapt fast enough, so we propose to use a trajectory controller as an intermediate control layer in the software structure. This intermediate layer exchanges information with the low level controller and the high level planner. The proposed trajectory controller, based on the concept of Online Trajectory Generation (OTG), allows real time computation of trajectories and easy communication with the different components, including path planner, trajectory generator, collision checker and controller. To avoid the replan of an entire trajectory when reacting to a human behaviour change, the controller must allow deforming locally a trajectory or accelerate/decelerate by modifying the time function. The trajectory controller must also accept to switch from an initial trajectory to a new trajectory to follow. Cubic polynomial functions are used to describe trajectories, they provide smoothness, flexibility and computational simplicity. Moreover, to satisfy the objective of aesthetics, smoothing algorithm are proposed to produce human-like motions. This work, conducted as part of the ANR project ICARO, has been integrated and validated on the KUKA LWR robot platform of LAAS-CNRS

Situation Assessment for Human-Robot Interactive Object Manipulation

In daily human interactions spatial reasoning occupies an important place. With this ability we can build relations between objects and people, and we can predict the capabilities and the knowledge of the people around us. An interactive robot is also expected to have these abilities in order to establish an efficient and natural interaction. In this paper we present a situation assessment reasoner, based on spatial reasoning and perspective taking, which generates on-line relations between objects and agents in the environment. Being fully integrated to a complete architecture, this reasoner sends the generated symbolic knowledge to a fact data base which is built on the basis on an ontology and which is accessible to the entire system. This work is also part of a broader effort to develop a complete decisional framework for human-robot interactive task achievement

Situation Assessment for Human-Robot Interactive Object Manipulation

In daily human interactions spatial reasoning occupies an important place. With this ability we can build relations between objects and people, and we can predict the capabilities and the knowledge of the people around us. An interactive robot is also expected to have these abilities in order to establish an efficient and natural interaction. In this paper we present a situation assessment reasoner, based on spatial reasoning and perspective taking, which generates on-line relations between objects and agents in the environment. Being fully integrated to a complete architecture, this reasoner sends the generated symbolic knowledge to a fact data base which is built on the basis on an ontology and which is accessible to the entire system. This work is also part of a broader effort to develop a complete decisional framework for human-robot interactive task achievement