Safe Navigation of Robots in a Dynamic and Uncertain World

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Robotics is poised to revolutionize several aspects of our society in the coming years from the way we move people and things around to healthcare to manufacturing. In particular, mobile robotics technology has matured to the point that self-driving cars and unmanned aerial vehicles (a.k.a., drones) are being actively pursued by industry, from small startups to the world's technology giants. While some products will come to market in the next few years, they will not be fully autonomous, meaning they will not operate under all conditions that a human operator can handle. To achieve this, a great deal more research is needed. Real applications of mobile robots are challenging because the operating environment (e.g., our roadways, our skies, big warehouses) can be large, cluttered, dynamic, and unknown/uncertain. This means that the key autonomy functions, which include localization, mapping, planning, and control, must address these challenges. Within robotics, we have barely scratched the surface when it comes to making systems that can operate for very long periods of time without human assistance. This program of research will continue to tackle these long-term autonomy challenges associated with localization, mapping, planning, and control of mobile robots. In particular, we will address (i) robust localization, (ii) multi-object tracking and prediction, (iii) knowledge/uncertainty representation, and (iv) safe planning. Tackling these issues will require novel sensing modalities, new algorithms rooted in machine learning and control/estimation theory, exploitation of big data/cloud computing, and extensive field testing. We will create new autonomy software comprising all the key functions needed to navigate mobile robots through a dynamic and uncertain world. As we do so, we will work closely with industrial partners to transfer our technology to real-world applications such as warehouse robots, self-driving cars, and drone delivery systems. Canada is rapidly growing its capabilities in these areas and we hope to make big contributions in terms of the technology and people needed to shape the future.