PANDORA: Persistent Autonomy through Learning, Adaptation, Observation and Re-planning

Abstract Autonomous robots are not very good at being autonomous. Operating in real environments, they easily get stuck, often ask for help, and generally succeed only when attempting simple tasks in well-known situations. PANDORA is a three year project that will develop and evaluate new computational methods to make underwater robots Persistently Autonomous, significantly reducing the frequency of assistance requests. The key to this is an ability to recognise failure and respond to it, at all levels of abstraction and time constant. Under the guidance of major industrial players, validation tasks of Inspection, cleaning and valve turning will be trialled with partners’ AUVs in Scotland and Spain.