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Probabilistic guarantees for high-level robot behavior in the presence of sensor error

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Abstract

This paper presents an approach for reasoning about the effects of sensor error on high-level robot behavior. We consider robot controllers that are synthesized from high-level, temporal logic task specifications, such that the resulting robot behavior is guaranteed to satisfy these specifications when assuming perfect sensors and actuators. We relax the assumption of perfect sensing, and calculate the probability with which the controller satisfies a set of temporal logic specifications. We consider parametric representations, where the satisfaction probability is found as a function of the model parameters, and numerical representations, allowing for the analysis of large examples. We also consider models in which some parts of the environment and sensor have unknown transition probabilities, in which case we can determine upper and lower bounds for the probability. We illustrate our approach with two examples that provide insight into unintuitive effects of sensor error that can inform the specification design process.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by NSF CNS-0931686. The authors would like to thank Cameron Finucane and Vasumathi Raman for all their valuable help.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cornell University, 127 Upson Hall, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

    Benjamin Johnson

  2. Cornell University, 210 Upson Hall, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

    Hadas Kress-Gazit

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  1. Benjamin Johnson
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  2. Hadas Kress-Gazit
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Correspondence to Benjamin Johnson.

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Johnson, B., Kress-Gazit, H. Probabilistic guarantees for high-level robot behavior in the presence of sensor error. Auton Robot 33, 309–321 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10514-012-9301-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10514-012-9301-4

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