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Title: Navigation and learning experiments by an autonomous robot

Conference ·
OSTI ID:7012165

Developing an autonomous mobile robot capable of navigation, surveillance and manipulation in complex and dynamic environments is a key research activity at CESAR, Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Center for Engineering Systems Advanced Research. The latest series of completed experiments was performed using the autonomous mobile robot HERMIES-IIB (Hostile Environment Robotic Machine Intelligence Experiment Series II-B). The next section describes HERMIES-IIB and some of its major components required for autonomous operation in unstructured, dynamic environments. Section 3 outlines some ongoing research in autonomous navigation. Section 4 discusses our newest research in machine learning concepts. Section 5 describes a successful experiment in which the robot is placed in an arbitrary initial location without any prior specification of the content of its environment, successively discovers and navigates around stationary or moving obstacles, picks up and moves small obstacles, searches for a control panel and performs a learned sequence of manipulations on the panel devices. The last section outlines some future directions of the program.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (USA)
DOE Contract Number:
AC05-84OR21400
OSTI ID:
7012165
Report Number(s):
CONF-881140-5; ON: DE88014546
Resource Relation:
Conference: 2. international symposium on robotics and manufacturing research, education and applications, Albuquerque, NM, USA, 16 Nov 1988; Other Information: Portions of this document are illegible in microfiche products
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English