Qualitative spatial understanding and reactive control for autonomous robots

The work involves integrating two paradigms for robust robotic systems: reactive control and qualitative spatial reasoning. The objective is to produce autonomous robots which can freely wander about, without harming themselves, while creating and improving maps of their environment which can then be used for navigation and planning. Reactive control provides a basic framework for developing and organizing behaviors for autonomous exploration and navigation. Qualitative spatial understanding provides an underlying representation and learning mechanism which will let the robot form spatial memories without requiring complicated object recognition or precise determination of environmental locations. The overall goal is to advance both areas of study for robotics as pertains to planning, learning, and real-time control.<<ETX>>