Navigation and learning experiments by an autonomous robot

Conference · Fri Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1988

OSTI ID:7012165

de Saussure, G; Weisbin, C R; Spelt, P F

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
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
420200* -- Engineering-- Facilities
Equipment
& Techniques
AUTOMATION
DESIGN
EQUIPMENT
LABORATORY EQUIPMENT
MANIPULATORS
MATERIALS HANDLING EQUIPMENT
NAVIGATION
REMOTE HANDLING EQUIPMENT
ROBOTS
SURVEILLANCE