μAutonomy: Intelligent Command of Movable Objects

Abstract Moving beyond the traditional scope of cyberphysical systems this work presents μAutonomy, a novel proposal in the field of connected intelligent actuating objects. In this paper, we identify and study the implications of controlling moveable objects in a cyberphysical environment. This kind of environment is rapidly gaining attention in applications that include control of unmanned aerial vehicles, high altitude orbit control of robotic exploration probes, or robotic tele-diagnostics. Our work introduces a mechanism that greatly improves the operation of actuating objects over wireless links of varying quality. The proposed approach successfully compensates for communications impairments by tracking the system state and deciding course of action based on probabilistic principles. We tested our proposal using an experimental testbed consisting of an unmanned small-scale vehicle and present experimental results obtained through an extensive human subject based study. Our results show how the proposed mechanism significantly compensates for channel impairments aiding in the completion of a variety of basic tasks.