1980-82 - ROBART-I Sentry Robot - H. R. Everett (American)

Text and some images sourced from here – http://www.spawar.navy.mil/robots/land/robart/robart.html

This link also contains other links to ROBART information, not covered here.

ROBART-I was Bart Everett‘s thesis project at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA.Â and one of the very first behavior-based autonomous robots ever built. The navigation scheme provided a layered hierarchy of behaviors (see Table below) that looked ahead for a clear path (high-level), reactively avoided nearby obstacles (intermediate-level), and responded to actual impacts (low-level). A basic tenet of this strategy was the ability of certain high-level deliberative behaviors to influence or even disable the intermediate and low-level reactive behaviors, such as when docking with the recharging station, for example.

LEVEL	BEHAVIOR	RESULTING ACTION
High	Radar Survey Dock	Look ahead for encroaching obstacles Look for opening in forward hemisphere Home in on recharging station
Intermediate	Wander Wall Hugging	Seek clear path along new heading Follow adjacent wall in close proximity
Low	Proximity Reaction Impact Reaction	Veer away from close proximity Veer away from physical contact

ROBART I’s assigned function was to patrol a home environment, following either a random or set pattern from room to room, checking for unwanted conditions such as fire, smoke, intrusion, etc. The security application was chosen because it demonstrated performance of a useful function and did not require an end-effector or vision system, significantly reducing the required system complexity. Provision was made for locating and connecting with a free-standing recharging station when battery voltage began running low. Patrols were made at random intervals, with the majority of time spent immobile in a passive intrusion-detection mode to conserve power.

Being a prototype, the images below will show variances as it evolved.