Priamos: An Advanced Mobile System for Service, Inspection, and Surveillance Tasks

Abstract

Opening new application areas for mobile robots requires to design systems that are robust, safe, and adaptive with respect to the environment they are operating in. Such systems must be smart enough to communicate with inexperienced users. They must therefore be easily programmable and understandable. This article describes PRIAMOS, an autonomous mobile robot equipped with a highly sophisticated sensor system which enables it to operate autonomously in a real o ce environment. Since the basis for e cient robot operation is a reliable model of the real world, particular interest is devoted to the PRIAMOS sensor system and the methods used to maintain the robot's world knowledge. A changing world requires changing strategies for problem solving. Approaches to the adaptation of PRIAMOS' task-related knowledge, i.e., to learning situation-action rules from experience, are presented. In that context, programming by demonstration and models of concept formation are considered to establish a meaningful communication link to a human user.

A team of robotic agents for surveillance

“…This research has traditionally focused on single, large, independent robots designed to replace a single human security guard as he makes his rounds [9]. Such systems are now available commercially and are in place in, for example, factory, warehouse, and hospital settings [10,12,15], and research continues along these lines [4,13,18]. However, the single mobile agent is unable to be many in places at once--one of the reasons why security systems were initially developed.…”