Towards a Robotic Ecology

BriefingAugust 27, 1999

Rodney Brooks Greg Pottie (MIT) (UCLA)

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Robot Ecologies

Where we are: Single robot that has as its intellectual metaphor a lone animal that perhaps can interact with people.

Where we are going now: Swarms of identical robots based on social insect metaphors, perhaps with augmented communication.

Where we want to go: Self deploying, and self sustaining ecologies of plant-like robots and animal-like robots that symbiotically interact across many species, in order to carry out complex missions without logistical support.

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The Robot Ecologists

• Rod Brooks, ISAT

• Greg Pottie, UCLA

• Dick Urban, DARPA

• Elana Ethridge, SPC

• Polly Pook, IS Robotics

• Sarita Thakoor, JPL

• David Gerrold, writer

• Russ Frew, ISAT

• Al McLaughlin, ISAT

• Chuck Taylor, UCLA

• Maja Mataric, USC

• Brian Wilcox, JPL• Paul MacCready,

AeroVironment• Doug Stetson, JPL,• Helen Greiner, IS Robotics,• Ian Waitz, MIT• Dave Shaver, Lincoln Lab• Steve LaFontaine, MIT• Steve Leeb, MIT• Erik Syvrud, OST• John Blitch, DARPA• Mark Swinson, DARPA• Bob Nowak, DARPA• Keith Holcomb, Marines (ret)

COMMITTEE ITINERANTS GUEST PRESENTERS

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Warfare in an Asymmetrical Situation

• Stay outside of detection circle depends on cross section (self)

• Within circle want to: sense what is happening maintain long term presence tag things and infiltrate surgically

and outfiltrate(!) maintain covertness

• Stay outside of lethality circle depends on weapons (of

opponent)

• Want numerical advantage• Within circle want to:

sense what is happening provide targeting information disrupt the opponent’s cohesion

and will

SURVEILLANCE ENGAGEMENT

peoplerobots

detection/lethality circle

The game is changing--we must change our response.

Logistics chain

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Why Using Robots Is Hard, Yet Good

• Need covert deployment• Need occasional mobility• Need long term operation

energy supply logistics possibly resupply (bio

sensors)

• Need covert information return

• Robots can move• Robots can be very small• Robots can carry variety of

sensors• Robots wait patiently

SURVEILLANCE ENGAGEMENT

• Need rapid deployment• Need rapid mobility• Need logistics chain• Need reliable, rapid

information processing and transmission

• Need active responses

• Robots can move• Robots are expendable• Robots can carry a variety of

sensors• Robots can provide many

viewpointsWe know where you are and what you are doing.

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Solution: The Robot Ecology

• Build an ecology of ‘animal’- and ‘plant’-like robots Go beyond the idea of single mobile robots

Develop the collective as a super-organism where no single part understands the whole

• The Robot Ecology is a self-constructing infrastructure

supports diverse individual tasks and enables more complex missions

handles system degradation gracefully

is self-sustaining throughout mission life

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How The Components Combine

caterpillar (mobile sensor)

stationary sensor mother plant

“seed” sensors

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What new capabilities?

• Precondition the battlefield for timely and precise targeting of enemy assets Know the environment

• scout, search, collect, penetrate, filter, report Tag enemy assets

• reduce fog; trace and target Weaken enemy infrastructure

• disrupt, confuse, attack cohesion and will Deploy friendly infrastructure

• communication, navigation, supplies, weapons

• High-quality low-cost real-time intelligence available to small tactical units

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Symbiosis Between People and Robots

• The robot ecology needs to intermesh with the human organization in a symbiotic relationship

People are better at some things Robots are better at some things

• Robots will be the remote extension of people Robots must support people rather than force people to

support robots People are freed to make the higher level judgements

• in command without having to control

• The currencies of the self-sustaining robot ecology are energy and information

• they trade against each other and between themselves• they need to be supplied at the right places and times

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Application Scenarios

• Remote exploration

• Tagging of people/trucks/ships/submarines

• Self-deploying communications/power network

• Search and rescue

• Battlefield surveillance, mine countermeasures

• Response to bio/chem attack

• Monitoring (infesting) a building

• Monitoring remote site for underground facilities (UGF)

• Support for military operations in urban terrain (MOUT)

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UGF

• Threats: missile sites, weapons factories (e.g. biochem), command facilities, storage, weapons research

• What needs to be done: covertly characterize the facility (activity and structure) and possibly disrupt it

• Task List: monitor input/output of facility (roads, vents, effluent), sense nearby, sense inside, guide weapons, disrupt facility

• Steps: locate, infiltrate/disrupt, infestation, gather information; establish logistical chain for communication, sample retrieval and/or facility disruption

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Underground Facility Characterization

UAV follows; releases microflyers, “seeds”

pods, creepers, burrs, mobile

(maybe satellite detect)

burrowing device from mother plant down to buried targets

communication relay to hill

creeper down air vent;burr placed inside;set up sensor net

(vibrations, gases, etc.)

[not to scale]

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MOUT

• Threats: snipers, suicide bombers, biohazards, traps/mines; complication of neutrals as shields, chaos and confusion

• What needs to be done: avoid entering circle of lethality while establishing order and control

• Task List: navigation, communication, clearing, securing cleared areas, security in crowded/cluttered areas

• Steps: long-range deployment (e.g. to rooftops), local self-deployment, sense assess and reposition cycle, weapons use; diversity and numbers to overcome countermeasures

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Military Operations in Urban Terrain

Camouflaged devices for tracking, scanning, extracting bio-samples

Robo-insects gain access inside doors/windows, around corners,

Sensors defend secured areas

Creeper/climbers gather indoor /outdoor info; form comm relay

not to scale

Microflyers “harvest” bio-samples

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Why Can’t We Just Do This Today?

• There are some key systems challenges Scaling

• 10’s (now) to 100’s and 1000’s

Heterogeneity

• Symbiotic relationships of plantbots, mobots, and people

Adaptivity

• Context-aware self-organizing systems

• Some holes in base technology research areas Mobility Self-configuring networks Sensors Energy sources Cooperative behavior S

yst

em

iss

ues

sup

port

ed

by t

ech

nolo

gie

s

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Systems Issues Relate to Technologies

Evaluation Scale: 0 = no idea 1 = fragile lab demo 2 = solid lab demo 3 = real stuff

Sca

ling

Hete

rog

eneou

s

Ad

ap

tabili

ty

Mobility

Self-configuring networksSensors

Energy sources

Cooperative behavior

NA 1 1

1 1 0

2 1 2

NA 1 0

1 0 1

Each of these systems issuescan only be pushed forwardwith adequate support fromthe underlying technologies.

The technologies havecertain levels of developmentas they relate to the systemsissues.

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walking, climbing, reaching, standing, peering...Mobility: rolling, boring, swimming, creeping, hatching, flying,

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Plantbots

• Current Examples: factory robots, sensor networks

• Future Examples: solar net, sensor net, sensor seed, creeper vine, balloon

launcher, burr, lure, tumbleweed, bio-station, any sci-fi alien plant form...

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Plantbots

• Capabilities Accumulate/convert energy, information, provide shelter

(e.g., for short-lived bio-sensors), resupply; no self-locomotion for whole plant

• Benefits Limited mobility (seeds, creepers) can lead to advantage

in information or energy collection

Will provide the infrastructure for the mobile ecology components

• Challenge: requires extensive new research to devise appropriate forms and interoperation

ISAT DARPA20not to scale

air drop

spreads over tree

climbs down

sends out network

on ground mobile 'bots crawl

on jungle floor

climbs up,

establishes newnettwork

Communications Self-Deployment

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Sensor State of the Art• Current:

Lots of low-power compact sensors exist

• acoustic, magnetic, seismic, pressure, IR, and visible

Other sensors require considerable development to meet reliability/size requirements, e.g. bio/chem

In general, cost dominated by communications and signal processing, rather than the sensor itself

• Imaging (IR or visible) costly in signal processing and (especially) communications

• Active sensors (e.g. radar) costly in power; require energy support network, cueing by other sensors for sustainability

• Future - Systems Approach: Exploit large numbers of sensors via self-organizing mobile

networks

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Self Configuring Networks

• General-Purpose Networks won’t work: set-up is labor-intensive, even for military field command

posts

can’t be deployed in denied areas

pushing the limits result in high energy/complexity costs

• Future Mobile Sensor Networks by contrast are relaxed in all aspects if processing is done locally

exploitation of application and mobility allows energy-efficient and scalable design

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Benefits of Mobile Sensor Networks

• Current: static distributed sensor net provides dense data gathering but, taxes information management through large numbers

• Small motion can dramatically improve detection and communication

e.g., maximize field of view, line-of-sight, form synthetic apertures

with better signal need many fewer elements

• Larger motion enables dynamic network deployment repair network failures, track and investigate threats beyond initial region of sensors extend or change detection region

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Energy Generation/Extraction/Distribution

• Many methods 1. battery exchange 2. wires (incl. telephone and power grid) 3. solar 4. wind/water/waves 5. beaming (incl. concentrator mirrors) 6. hydrocarbon/fuel cells 7. convoys/depot system 8. animals (burrs and lures) 9. vehicles (burrs; exploit vibrations)10. hybrid, e.g., both capacitors and batteries for high currents

• Research required into how to best combine methods for particular systems and missions

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Energy Conversion / Sustainment

plugs in

creeper comes out

micro-flyer moves battery

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Future Energy Management

• Sustainment through ecology Design of energy system has large impact on

sustainability; e.g. plantbot energy network for energy accumulation and distribution

• Efficient use through distributed information Network provides global information to minimize

energy waste•navigation assistance, actuation/mobility avoidance,

resource discovery and management, exploitation of heterogeneity of ability/location

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Cooperation: The Lessons of Ants

• Specialization and castes enable range of tasks to be performed

• Cooperative behaviors enlarge the set of tasks

• Main benefits of colonies however are: parallelism of tasks collective reliability with individual unreliability

• Ants apply distributed algorithms for collective control

• Much more research is needed to enable robot colonies to get these kinds of benefits

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networking, competing, cooperating, distributing, sweeping...

Current cooperative robots are mostlyhomogeneous, and never more than20 robots

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Robot Cooperation Challenges

• Centralized systems are brittle and require excessive communications resources.

Must identify effective heuristics for distributed coordination

• Communications and energy network self-organization cannot be general purpose

Cooperation must be pursued in applications context

• Lack of operational data Field tests to discover the needed behaviors for particular

missions, and integrate human operators and larger military/industrial infrastructure

• Lack of general theory of cooperation With a better understanding, can reduce number of

experiments

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Robot Ecology Today

• Factory automation:

adjust environment for convenience of robots

• Global economy:

large infrastructure in place for symbiotic human/machine interaction on regional and global scales

• Battlefield:

unpredictable environment and no infrastructure, and thus many people to sustain each robot

• Need sustained autonomous operation in diverse environments

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Robot Ecology Tomorrow

• Scaling More than 20 robots

• Heterogeneous robots Diverse sets of robots working together in

sustained missions

• Adaptivity Context-aware adaptation among members of

the ecology for operation in unplanned environments

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Getting There

• Experiments

short-term, incremental progress

• integration of existing components, medium scaling

long-term, revolutionary steps

• incorporation of new algorithms, components, large scale

standard test conditions, and real-world

• Standard parts

modular robot software and hardware for plug and play

• enables creation of diverse, distributed research community

• Fundamental theoretical research

cooperation, scaling, adaptation