NRI: INT: COLLAB: Program Verification and Synthesis for Collaborative Robots

开发机器人应用程序目前需要机器人和软件工程方面的先进知识和技能。因此，机器人应用程序的开发目前仅限于人口的一小部分，不包括那些可能对机器人的潜在应用领域有最深刻见解的人（例如，物流、制造、营销方面的专家），那些可能更适合为人类交互设计机器人行为的人（例如，设计师，艺术家，心理学家），以及那些可能每天使用和重新利用机器人的人（例如，最终用户、主管、维护人员）。该项目旨在设计和实现一套工具和方法，由编程语言领域的发展提供动力，以使交互式机器人的编程具有最少的经验。这些工具和方法将有助于编程过程的所有阶段，包括机器人行为应该是什么的构思，程序的编码，对机器人的测试以保证某些属性，以及调整程序以适应不同环境中的部署。这项研究将使机器人编程更广泛地面向公众，并通过大幅降低参与技术开发的障碍来“民主化”。通过与领域专家的合作，该项目创建的原理，方法和工具将应用于现实世界的机器人应用，将该项目的科学贡献转移到机器人组织。通过综合教育计划，计算机科学培训和课程将通过引入机器人软件开发的新课程和课程模块来加强三个机构。为了促进公众对科学和技术的理解和参与，将沿着开发一个面向小学和中学年龄儿童的机器人编程环境，并在暑期外展项目中使用结构化课程，这些将作为开源材料广泛传播。该项目的关键创新是开发新的编程模式，先进的程序分析和综合方法，以支持机器人应用程序开发周期中的各种编程任务。具体而言，该项目将支持三个研究方向的周期的每个阶段，具有以下目标：（1）通过将通过行动和对话捕获的设计师和最终用户意图转化为机器人程序，促进用户意图的捕获;（2）通过促进健壮，可靠和有效的机器人程序的开发，改进，分析和合成，支持迭代开发和测试;（3）通过使现有机器人程序适应新的环境、使用场景和社会背景来优化部署。这些研究成果将被集成到ROS框架内的一套机器人编程工具中，并与工业合作伙伴合作部署在现实世界的机器人编程任务中。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Developing applications for robots currently requires advanced knowledge and skills in both robotics and software engineering. As a result, development of robot applications is currently only accessible to a very small segment of the population, excluding those who might have the deepest insight about potential application domains for robots (e.g., experts in logistics, manufacturing, marketing), those who might be better suited to design robot behaviors for human interaction (e.g., designers, artists, psychologists), and those who might be using and repurposing robots day-to-day (e.g., end-users, supervisors, maintenance personnel). This project aims to design and implement a suite of tools and methods, powered by developments in the field of programming languages, to enable the programming of interactive robots with minimal prior experience. These tools and methods will assist all stages of the programming process, including ideation of what the robot behavior should be, coding of the program, its testing on the robot to guarantee certain properties, and adapting the program for deployments in different contexts. The research will make robot programming accessible to the broader public and "democratize" it by substantially lowering barriers to engagement in technology development. Through collaborations with domain experts, the principles, methods, and tools created by the project will be applied to real-world robotics applications, transferring the scientific contributions of the project to robotics organizations. Through an integrated education program, computer science training and curriculum will be enhanced across three institutions by introducing new courses and course modules on robotics software development. To facilitate public understanding of and engagement with science and technology, a robot programming environment for elementary- and middle-school-aged children will be developed along with a structured curriculum for its use in an outreach summer program, and these will be widely disseminated as open-source materials.The key innovation of the project is the development of novel paradigms for programming that use state-of-the-art program analysis and synthesis methods to support a wide range of programming tasks across the development cycle for robotics applications. Specifically, the project will support each stage of the cycle in three research thrusts with the following objectives: (1) facilitating the capture of user intent by translating designer and end-user intent captured through acting and dialogue into robot programs; (2) supporting iterative development and testing by facilitating the development, refinement, analysis, and synthesis of robust, reliable, and effective robot programs; (3) optimizing deployment by enabling the adaptation of existing robot programs into new environments, scenarios of use, and social contexts. The outcomes of these research thrusts will be integrated into a suite of robot programming tools within the ROS framework and deployed in real-world robot programming tasks in collaboration with industrial partners.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.