Controlling Robot Morphology from Incomplete Measurements
This addresses the problem of high cognitive load for operators in Urban Search & Rescue missions by enabling autonomous control with incomplete data.
The paper tackles autonomous control of robot morphology in rough terrains by marginalizing over incomplete measurements and using tactile exploration when safety is violated, achieving explicit safety condition evaluation.
Mobile robots with complex morphology are essential for traversing rough terrains in Urban Search & Rescue missions (USAR). Since teleoperation of the complex morphology causes high cognitive load of the operator, the morphology is controlled autonomously. The autonomous control measures the robot state and surrounding terrain which is usually only partially observable, and thus the data are often incomplete. We marginalize the control over the missing measurements and evaluate an explicit safety condition. If the safety condition is violated, tactile terrain exploration by the body-mounted robotic arm gathers the missing data.