Updated: MarkCutkosky - 21 Oct 2006 2pm PST

• Focus: what will be the thrust of our activities during that year
• Research Questions: what are the main research questions that we will be trying to answer
• Activities: what activities will we undertake (things built, experiments performed, tests conducted, software developed...)
• Metrics: how will we assess whether we are on target

Year One

• Focus: Basic traveral and characterization of difficult terrain --

Development of robust crawling platform and sensor suite and establishment of initial terrain description and feature set. Examination of strategies for rough terrain navigation vis a vis feature set.

• Research Questions:
  • What are the main sources of difficulty in traversing terrain that is near the limits of the capabilities of a bio-inspired climbing platform? How can it be detected when the robot is in one of these difficult situations using a combination of readily available sensors?
  • What initial feature set (for the current state and recent history) is sufficient to allow a skilled human operator to determine whether the robot is in a "good" versus or "bad" or "precarious" condition?
  • What is a sufficiently complete description of terrain at the mid-length scale to avoid problems of tipping, slippage, and getting stuck (e.g., legs jammed or body "over centered" so that forward progress is not possible)?

• Activities:
  • Development of initial robot platform, adapted from existing Stickybot and iSprawl technology and initial experiments with existing RiSE platform.
  • Developement of initial terrain description (including multi-resolution voxel representation and ??? from previous work) for characterizing the terrain at the immediate (<= 1 body-length) and mid-term (1-3 body lengths) scales. Terrain features will include surface condition (friction and ease of gripping with microspined feet), roughness at multiple lengths scales (10^1 to 10^4 body lengths), surface orientations at likely foot locations.
  • Testing of initial sensor suite, including stereo vision, proprioceptive sensing, inertial sensing and extereoceptive sensors such as antennae and proximity sensors -- adapted from previous robot platforms. Tests will be conducted on indoor obstacles and taking advantage of external vision (Vicon? system) for tracking robot body and limbs position and orientation.

• Metrics:
  • Successful operation of robotic platform over terrain that is near the limits of current legged robots such as RHex, RiSE, WHegs.
  • Demonstration of robustness of the platform with respect to accidents.
  • Successful determination by a human operator of the quality of the immediate terrain using only data in the established feature set.
  • Basic robot/host computer wireless communication and protocols to permit higher level control and learning in the next phase.

Year Two

• Focus: Improve performance on difficult terrain and refine the terrain description for learning. Apply learning on
• Research Questions:
  • How can we integrate the information from stero vision with the information obtained by proprioceptive and proximity sensing to creater a more detailed characterization of the terrain with lower uncertainty as the robot starts to traverse it?
  • Can the we define stereotypical primitive operations such as horizontal-slope transition, safe stance recovery and self-righting that can be employed at run time?
  • If a skilled human operator guides the robot through difficult terrain the first time, can enough information be obtained to traverse the same terrain a second time, autonomously? Can this result be generalized to similar terrain?
  • Can it be recognized two terrains are sufficiently similar that the same primitives for locomotion, recovery, etc. can be pieced together (in varying sequence) for each?
  • Given (only) feature information about the long-term and mid-term terrain, what trajectory does a human operator choose?
• Activities:

Improved feature definitions value function corresponding to paths and configurations. Terrain matching and recognition experiments. Preliminary outdoor experiments to investigate sensitivity to changes in lighting.

• Metrics:

Robot can match terrains under varations in lighting.

Year Three

• Focus: Integration of immediate and mid-term planning and motion control.

Increased focus on outdoor performance. Learning terrain characeristics and short-term motion strategies for common conditions (e.g. horizontal/slope transition, steep slopes, valleys, hills that could cause robot to become stuck)

• Research Questions:

Can terrain properties be generalized and, if so, what is the appropriate representation? Can learning be transmitted from robot platform to another?

• Activities:

Outdoor and indoor experiments in difficult terrain traversal. "Challenge" demonstration on an outdoor trail with steep and rocky sections.

• Metrics:

Ability to recover from mishaps. Ability to backtrack and choose and alternate route when stuck. Ability to improve performance when exposed to similar terrain and obstacles multiple times. Ability to learn (learn terrain characteristics and associated short-term locomotion strategies) from supervised trajectory/exploration provided by a skilled human operator.