Taking the Long View: A Report on Two Recent Workshops on Long-Term Autonomy [From the Field]

T he topics of long-term autonomy and lifelong learning are attracting an increasing amount of attention in the robotics research community. Robots now routinely operate without human intervention for short periods of time, and several systems have demonstrated operation over longer durations. However, in the future, the majority of robots will need to function autonomously, outside the laboratory or the factory, on time scales ranging from days to years. Developing adaptive and flexible machines capable of this level of independence will require significant technical advances. In this short report, we summarize the results of two recent workshops on long-term autonomy and lifelong learning: 1) the International Conference on Robotics andAutomation (ICRA) 2011Workshop on Long-Term Autonomy and 2) the Robotics Science and Systems (RSS) 2011 Workshop on Autonomous Long-Term Operation in Novel Environments (ALONE). These workshops brought together prominent researchers from a diverse range of subdisciplines to establish the key issues involved in building robotic systems that are able to operate in increasingly large-scale environments and over long periods of time. Many of the problems identified are difficult. At present, we can offer numerous questions but few answers, and this, in a way, is the defining characteristic of a new research area. Based on the success of the initial discussions, longterm autonomy clearly warrants an extended dialogue, with the next step being a follow-up workshop at ICRA 2012.