Dynamic Autonomy

Introduction

Appropriate communication can promote synergy between intelligent air vehicles, ground vehicles and humans.

The Idaho National Laboratory is researching and developing new and innovative tools for synergistic interaction between autonomous robots and human operators / peers / supervisors. This research is developing a control architecture that interleaves multiple levels of human intervention into the functioning of a robotic system which will, in turn, learn to scale its own level of initiative to meet whatever level of input is handed down. For a robotic system to gracefully accept a full spectrum of intervention possibilities, interaction issues cannot be handled merely as augmentations to a control system. Instead, opportunities for operator intervention must be incorporated as an integral part of the robot's intrinsic intelligence. The robot must be imbued with the ability to accept different levels and frequencies of intervention. Moreover, for autonomous capabilities to evolve, the robot must be able to recognize when help is needed from an operator and/or other robot and learn from these interactions.