Towards Socially Constrained Power Management for Long-Term Operation of Mobile Robots

摘要

In the near future robots are expected to be part of our everyday life and we will use them in our homes, offices and other human social environments just like we use other devices or appliances today. For robots to operate in real social environments they should be capable of operating with a great degree of autonomy. This poses several challenges, as the robot should be able to sustain and operate over a longer period of time. Most autonomous mobile robotic systems draw power from batteries which have a limited power life. This poses even greater challenges for an autonomous robot to plan its tasks while being aware of the time required to recharge its batteries via a power source. Management of power resources is therefore important for autonomous robotic systems. In this paper we focus our attention on the significance of power management for long-term operation of autonomous robots. We establish the motivation for power management in the context of autonomy, and future socio-economic impact on the global energy usage. We then discuss some of the challenges in terms of battery technology, power estimation and auto recharging. We also describe some approaches, which deal with power management on robots. In our future work we plan to address the challenge of power management for long-term operation of mobile robots taking into account social considerations.