Semi-Autonomous Robot Action Ranking with Tele-Operation Guidance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current robotic systems face challenges in increasing the autonomy of semi-autonomous robots, as they often require significant human intervention to make decisions and adapt to changing environments, limiting their operational efficiency and applicability.
Innovation Solution
A method where a semi-autonomous robot identifies candidate actions, collects ancillary data, and transmits requests to a tele-operation system for instructions, allowing the robot to update its control model and increase its autonomy level by executing received instructions, which includes scoring and ranking actions based on probability and preference to determine autonomous decision-making capabilities.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Extent of automation
If a semi-autonomous robot operates with higher autonomy, then human intervention is reduced, but the robot's ability to make accurate decisions and adapt to changing environments deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
A tele-operation system acts as an intermediary between the robot and human operators. The system receives requests from the robot, generates multiple candidate actions with associated data, and transmits these to a tele-operation system that can provide guidance or make decisions. This intermediary structure allows the robot to maintain higher autonomy while ensuring reliable decision-making through human-in-the-loop oversight when needed.
2Measurement precision
If a robot collects and processes more data for decision-making, then decision quality improves, but the complexity of the robot's system increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the decision-making process into distinct components: the robot collects ancillary data and generates candidate actions locally, then transmits this segmented information to a tele-operation system for further processing and decision support. This segmentation allows each component to focus on specific tasks, improving decision quality while managing system complexity through distributed processing.
3Reliability
If the robot transmits requests for instructions to a tele-operation system, then decision accuracy improves, but the time required for decision-making increases
Solution Approach 1:
The robot implements partial autonomy by handling routine decisions independently while transmitting only complex or uncertain situations to the tele-operation system. The robot scores candidate actions and determines whether to request instructions based on confidence thresholds, performing partial decision-making locally to reduce time loss while maintaining accuracy for critical decisions through tele-operation support.
Data Source
AI summary
A method of operation of a robot includes determining a set of candidate actions to be performed by the robot based on an objective. A level of autonomy of the robot is determined from a control model associated with the robot. A subset of candidate actions for which the level of autonomy of the robot is below a threshold level of autonomy is determined from the set of candidate actions. The robot receives a set of instructions for at least one candidate action in the subset of candidate actions from a tele-operation system. The robot executes the set of instructions and updates the control model based on a result of executing the set of instructions.