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Autonomous robots: potential, advances and future direction

Autonome Roboter: Potenzial, Fortschritte und künftige Richtungen

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Abstract

Recent advances in machine learning, such as deep neural networks, have caused a huge boost in many different areas of artificial intelligence and robotics. These methods typically require a large corpus of well-prepared and labelled training data, which limits the applicability to robotics. In our opinion, a fundamental challenge in autonomous robotics is to design systems that are simple enough to solve simple tasks. These systems should grow in complexity step by step and more complex models like neural networks should be trained by re-using the information acquired over the robot’s lifetime. Ultimately, high-level abstractions should be generated from these models, bridging the gap from low-level sensor data to high-level AI systems. We present first steps into this direction and analyse their limitations and future extensions in order to achieve the goal of designing autonomous agents.

Zusammenfassung

Jüngste Fortschritte im maschinellen Lernen, wie tiefe Neuronale Netze, haben einen großen Schub in vielen verschiedenen Bereichen der Künstlichen Intelligenz und Robotik bewirkt. Diese Methoden erfordern in der Regel einen großen Stamm an gut aufbereiteten Trainingsdaten, welche die Anwendbarkeit der Robotik begrenzen. Unserer Meinung nach ist es eine grundlegende Herausforderung in der autonomen Robotik, Systeme zu entwerfen, die einfach genug sind, um einfache Aufgaben zu lösen. Diese Systeme sollten dann Schritt für Schritt an Komplexität zunehmen. Komplexere Modelle, wie Neuronale Netze, sollten schließlich durch das Auswerten der über die Zeit gewonnenen Informationen laufend weiter trainiert werden. Letztendlich sollten aus diesen Modellen hochrangige Abstraktionen generiert werden, die gewisse fehlende Informationen von Low-Level-Sensordaten hin zu High-Level-Systemen der Künstlichen Intelligenz überbrücken können. Die Autoren stellen erste Schritte in diese Richtung vor und analysieren die Grenzen bzw. künftigen Erweiterungen mit dem Ziel, autonome Agenten zu entwerfen.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Intelligent and Interactive Systems, Universität Innsbruck, Technikerstraße 21A, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria

    Simon Hangl & Justus Piater

  2. Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Emre Ugur

Authors
  1. Simon Hangl
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  2. Emre Ugur
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  3. Justus Piater
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Correspondence to Simon Hangl.

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Hangl, S., Ugur, E. & Piater, J. Autonomous robots: potential, advances and future direction. Elektrotech. Inftech. 134, 293–298 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00502-017-0516-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00502-017-0516-0

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