scholarly journals The Quest For "Always-On" Autonomous Mobile Robots

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joydeep Biswas
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Robots ◽  
State Machine ◽  
Autonomous Mobile Robots ◽  
Human In The Loop ◽  
The World ◽  
Feature Based ◽  
Markov Localization

Building ``always-on'' robots to be deployed over extended periods of time in real human environments is challenging for several reasons. Some fundamental questions that arise in the process include: 1) How can the robot reconcile unexpected differences between its observations and its outdated map of the world? 2) How can we scalably test robots for long-term autonomy? 3) Can a robot learn to predict its own failures, and their corresponding causes? 4) When the robot fails and is unable to recover autonomously, can it utilize partially specified, approximate human corrections to overcome its failures? We summarize our research towards addressing all of these questions. We present 1) Episodic non-Markov Localization to maintain the belief of the robot's location while explicitly reasoning about unmapped observations; 2) a 1,000km challenge to test for long-term autonomy; 3) feature-based and learning-based approaches to predicting failures; and 4) human-in-the-loop SLAM to overcome robot mapping errors, and SMT-based robot transition repair to overcome state machine failures.

The Second Stage Experiments on Long Term Activity of Autonomous Mobile Robots - Repetitive Navigation for One Week in a Corridor

2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 375-381
Author(s):  
Yasushi Hada ◽  
◽  
Shin'ichi Yuta
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Robots ◽  
Experimental System ◽  
Autonomous Mobile Robots ◽  
Second Stage ◽  
Real Robot

Our goal is to enhance the autonomy of mobile robots, which must perform meaningful tasks for a long-term with regular maintenance at intervals of a week or month. Since we started this research, we recognize not only complexity but duration as indications of autonomy, which we call ""Long Term Activity"". We are studying such autonomy using an experimental robotics approach, which constructs a real robot and develops required technologies. Our experimental system, still in work, navigates a corridor environment autonomously for one week. In this paper, we present the system and some results of experiments.

scholarly journals An Adaptive Memory Model for Long-Term Navigation of Autonomous Mobile Robots

2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Hentschel ◽  
B. Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Robots ◽  
Indoor Environment ◽  
Human Memory ◽  
Autonomous Mobile Robots ◽  
Memory Model ◽  
Adaptive Memory ◽  
Variant Information ◽  
Environmental Representation ◽  
Over Time

This paper introduces an environmental representation for autonomous mobile robots that continuously adapts over time. The presented approach is inspired by human memory information processing and stores the current as well as past knowledge of the environment. In this paper, the memory model is applied to time-variant information about obstacles and driveable routes in the workspace of the autonomous robot and used for solving the navigation cycle of the robot. This includes localization and path planning as well as vehicle control. The presented approach is evaluated in a real-world experiment within changing indoor environment. The results show that the environmental representation is stable, improves its quality over time, and adapts to changes.

Thoughts on the Long-Term Strategy, Science and Democracy

2006 ◽  
pp. 4-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Abalkin
Keyword(s):  
Strategy Development ◽  
Russian Science ◽  
Global Trends ◽  
The World ◽  
World Development ◽  
Crucial Condition

The article covers unified issues of the long-term strategy development, the role of science as well as democracy development in present-day Russia. The problems of budget proficit, the Stabilization Fund issues, implementation of the adopted national projects, an increasing role of regions in strengthening the integrity and prosperity of the country are analyzed. The author reveals that the protection of businessmen and citizens from the all-embracing power of bureaucrats is the crucial condition of democratization of the society. Global trends of the world development and expert functions of the Russian science are presented as well.

Coal's Persistence in the Capitalist World-Economy

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul K. Gellert ◽  
Paul S. Ciccantell
Keyword(s):  
World Economy ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Energy Transition ◽  
Ecological Modernization ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Coal Consumption ◽  
The World ◽  
Capitalist World Economy ◽  
Capitalist World

Predominant analyses of energy offer insufficient theoretical and political-economic insight into the persistence of coal and other fossil fuels. The dominant narrative of coal powering the Industrial Revolution, and Great Britain's world dominance in the nineteenth century giving way to a U.S.- and oil-dominated twentieth century, is marred by teleological assumptions. The key assumption that a complete energy “transition” will occur leads some to conceive of a renewable-energy-dominated twenty-first century led by China. After critiquing the teleological assumptions of modernization, ecological modernization, energetics, and even world-systems analysis of energy “transition,” this paper offers a world-systems perspective on the “raw” materialism of coal. Examining the material characteristics of coal and the unequal structure of the world-economy, the paper uses long-term data from governmental and private sources to reveal the lack of transition as new sources of energy are added. The increases in coal consumption in China and India as they have ascended in the capitalist world-economy have more than offset the leveling-off and decline in some core nations. A true global peak and decline (let alone full substitution) in energy generally and coal specifically has never happened. The future need not repeat the past, but technical, policy, and movement approaches will not get far without addressing the structural imperatives of capitalist growth and the uneven power structures and processes of long-term change of the world-system.

Covid-19 and Mining industry

2020 ◽  
pp. 10-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
V.B. Kondratiev
Keyword(s):  
Mining Industry ◽  
Commodity Markets ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
Mining Companies ◽  
The World ◽  
Commodity Demand ◽  
Long Term Impact

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the commodity markets and mining industry around the world in different ways. Mining company’s operations have been hit by coronavirus outbreaks and government-mandated production stops. Demand for many commodities remains low. This paper examines the potential long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on future commodity demand, mining prospects, as well as tactical and strategic steps by mining companies to overcome the current crisis quickly and effectively.

Unmaking and Remaking the World in Long-Term Solitary Confinement

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 16
Author(s):  
Lisa Guenther
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Solitary Confinement ◽  
Hunger Strike ◽  
State Prison ◽  
Legal Documents ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Collective Resistance ◽  
Civil Death

In The Body in Pain, Elaine Scarry analyzes the structure of torture as an unmaking of the world in which the tools that ought to support a person’s embodied capacities are used as weapons to break them down. The Security Housing Unit (SHU) of California’s Pelican Bay State Prison functions as a weaponized architecture of torture in precisely this sense; but in recent years, prisoners in the Pelican Bay Short Corridor have re-purposed this weaponized architecture as a tool for remaking the world through collective resistance. This resistance took the form of a hunger strike in which prisoners exposed themselves to the possibility of biological death in order to contest the social and civil death of solitary confinement. By collectively refusing food, and by articulating the meaning and motivation of this refusal in articles, interviews, artwork, and legal documents, prisoners reclaimed and expanded their perceptual, cognitive, and expressive capacities for world-making, even in a space of systematic torture.

Engineering for good: A case of community driven engineering innovation

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chinweike Eseonu ◽  
Martin A Cortes
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
Technology Innovation ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
First Year ◽  
Engineering Curriculum ◽  
Engineering Design Process ◽  
The World ◽  
The University ◽  
Social Consideration

There is a culture of disengagement from social consideration in engineering disciplines. This means that first year engineering students, who arrive planning to change the world through engineering, lose this passion as they progress through the engineering curriculum. The community driven technology innovation and investment program described in this paper is an attempt to reverse this trend by fusing community engagement with the normal engineering design process. This approach differs from existing project or trip based approaches – outreach – because the focus is on local communities with which the university team forms a long-term partnership through weekly in-person meetings and community driven problem statements – engagement.

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