Abstract-We describe an autonomous robotic system capable of navigating through an office environment, opening doors along the way, and plugging itself into electrical outlets to recharge as needed. We demonstrate through extensive experimentation that our robot executes these tasks reliably, without requiring any modification to the environment. We present robust detection algorithms for doors, door handles, and electrical plugs and sockets, combining vision and laser sensors. We show how to overcome the unavoidable shortcoming of perception by integrating compliant control into manipulation motions. We present a visual-differencing approach to highprecision plug-insertion that avoids the need for high-precision hand-eye calibration.

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-Autonomous systems are systems that can operate without human interference for extended periods of time in changing environments, likely in remote locations. Software is usually an essential part of such systems. However, adaptation of autonomy software is limited by its complexity and the difficulty of verifying and validating it. We describe an approach named runtime verification for testing autonomy software. Runtime verification is a technique for generating test oracles from abstract specifications of expected behavior. We describe its application to the PLASMA planning system, used in the recent Mars Exploration Rover missions. We furthermore discuss alternative autonomy V&V approaches.

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