Thanks to the efforts of the robotics and autonomous systems community, robots are becoming ever more capable. There is also an increasing demand from end-users for autonomous service robots that can operate in real environments for extended periods. In the STRANDS project1 we are tackling this demand head-on by integrating state-of-the-art artificial intelligence and robotics research into mobile service robots, and deploying these systems for long-term installations in security and care environments. Over four deployments, our robots have been operational for a combined duration of 104 days autonomously performing end-user defined tasks, covering 116km in the process. In this article we describe the approach we have used to enable long-term autonomous operation in everyday environments, and how our robots are able to use their long run times to improve their own performance.
['Nick Hawes', 'Christopher Burbridge', 'Ferdian Jovan', 'Lars Kunze', 'Bruno Lacerda', 'Lenka Mudrova', 'Jay Young', 'Jeremy L. Wyatt', 'Denise Hebesberger', 'Tobias Körtner', 'Rares Ambrus', 'Nils Bore', 'John Folkesson', 'Patric Jensfelt', 'Lucas Beyer', 'Alexander Hermans', 'Bastian Leibe', 'Aitor Aldoma', 'Thomas Faulhammer', 'Michael Zillich', 'Markus Vincze', 'Eris Chinellato', 'Muhannad Al-Omari', 'Paul Duckworth', 'Yiannis Gatsoulis', 'David C. Hogg', 'Anthony G. Cohn', 'Christian Dondrup', 'Jaime Pulido Fentanes', 'Tomas Krajnik', 'João Santos', 'Tom Duckett', 'Marc Hanheide']
The STRANDS Project: Long-Term Autonomy in Everyday Environments