Our Robots, Ourselves: Toward Situated Autonomy

Professor David A. Mindell MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics HUMATICS Corporation

• Lessons learned from 40 years of remote and autonomous systems in extreme environments of sea, air, and space

• Systems in these environments become less “autonomous” as they are situated within human systems of operation and use

• The challenge before us is not “full autonomy” (largely solved) but Situated Autonomy

• The Perfect Five

Our Robots, Ourselves (Viking / Penguin October 2015)

(A. Bowen, L. Freitag, N. Farr, WHOI)

“All autonomous systems are joint human-machine cognitive systems

There are no fully autonomous

systems just as there are no fully autonomous soldiers, sailors, airmen

or Marines” (p.24)

(Autonomous Aerial Cargo / Utility System)-- ONR / Aurora Flight Sciences

AACUS Operating Concept Main Operating Base (MOB) is over the horizon.

Combat Outpost (COP) is isolated, with a Landing Zone (LZ) near it.

Landing Point (LP) in the center of a Touchdown Zone

Landing Zone (LZ)

Alternate LP

AACUS Enabled System (AES)

E-4 Field Operator (FO) w/ COP interface, who negotiates w/ AES for LP.

No Fly Zone (NFZ)

✗ ✔

Lidar Suite

Handheld COP HSI

Route Planning

Notification Pt (NP)

Mission Computer

MOB AVO HSI

LZ Eval

AACUS Autonomy Workflow

SME interviews Cognitive task analysis COP GUI requirements COP GUI design

COP GUI Working model (Matlab) Mission Manager

Model (Stateflow)

Mission Manager auto-code

Humatics seeks to become the leading company enabling robots and autonomous systems to work within human environments. Our mission is to make autonomy better, safer and more trustworthy, by dramatically improving the way industrial, commercial and consumer robots and autonomous systems navigate complex environments to easily collaborate with people.

We are assembling a world-class product development team based on the simple idea that humans should and will remain essential to valuable technological systems.

Raised initial seed funding in summer of 2015, seeking series A 2016 with strategic partners.

PRECISION LOCALIZATION

INDUSTRIAL COLLABORATION

Human workers must stay outside of taped-off factory “danger zones” when industrial assembly robots are performing potentially dangerous tasks.

Industrial robots go into safety or “hold” mode to permit safe human access to factory assembly areas.

Humatics RF sensors installed along factory ceiling, on robot effector arm, and on human worker wristbands or badges.

Humatics precision localization technologies could enable humans and robots to work on shared assembly tasks – safely; simultaneously; in close proximity.

David A. Mindell Founder and CEO Humatics Cambridge, MA USA mindell@mit.edu

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