Mobile Robotics: Enabling a Pervasive Technology of the Future

愿景：创建、运行和利用世界领先的移动自主研究项目，解决阻碍大规模商业和社会采用移动机器人的基本技术问题。抱负：我们需要制造更好的机器人——我们需要它们便宜，在大型、复杂和不断变化的环境中与人协同工作，并长期这样做。此外，重要的是他们是安全和值得信赖的。作为研究人员，我们必须开发出基础技术，让机器人在经济和社会的重要领域发挥作用。这些动机推动了这项提议的科学性。策略：机器人技术正在快速发展，自主系统可以为公共领域增加真正的价值。移动机器人的潜在影响尤其巨大，涵盖了运输、物流、太空、国防、农业和基础设施管理等多个领域。为了实现这一潜力，我们需要我们的机器人价格便宜，能够在大型、复杂和不断变化的环境中与人协同工作，并能长期稳定地工作。因此，我们的目标是通过发展一个可持续的移动自主卓越中心，为UKPLC创造持久的、催化的影响。这项研究的一个核心原则是，通过设计算法，利用通过真实和持续的世界使用获得的经验，来解决技术状态和需求之间的能力差距。我们的机器将在人类的支持下运行，并无缝地集成到复杂的网络物理系统中，其中包含各种物理和计算元素。因此，我们必须能够保证，甚至证明，控制机器人的软件在设计上是安全可靠的。我们将通过不同领域（运输、物流、空间等）的一系列旗舰技术示范来参与这项工作，这将把研究结合在一起，立即给出背景、基础、验证和影响。

VISION: To create, run and exploit the world's leading research programme in mobile autonomy addressing fundamental technical issues which impede large scale commercial and societal adoption of mobile robotics.AMBITION: We need to build better robots - we need them to be cheap, work synergistically with people in large, complex and time-changing environments and do so for long periods of time. Moreover, it is essential that they are safe and trusted. We are compelled as researchers to produce the foundational technologies that will see robots work in economically and socially important domains. These motivations drive the science in this proposal. STRATEGY: Robotics is fast advancing to a point where autonomous systems can add real value to the public domain. The potential reach of mobile robotics in particular is vast, covering sectors as diverse as transport, logistics, space, defence, agriculture and infrastructure management. In order to realise this potential we need our robots to be cheap, work synergistically with people in large, complex and time-changing environments and do so robustly for long periods of time. Our aim, therefore, is to create a lasting, catalysing impact on UKPLC by growing a sustainable centre of excellence in mobile autonomy. A central tenet to this research is that the capability gap between the state of the art and what is needed is addressed by designing algorithms that leverage experiences gained through real and continued world use. Our machines will operate in support of humans and seamlessly integrate into complex cyber-physical systems with a variety of physical and computational elements. We must, therefore, be able to guarantee, and even certify, that the software that controls the robots is safe and trustworthy by design. We will engage in this via a range of flagship technology demonstrators in different domains (transport, logistics, space, etc.), which will mesh the research together, giving at once context, grounding, validation and impact.