Title: Safety in Dynamic Environments

Authors: Thierry Fraichard (Inria Research Associate)

Speaker: Thierry Fraichard (more)

Affiliation: Inria Rhone-Alpes, e-Motion team

Abstract:
Safety is definitely a keyword in Robotics. Robotic systems are expected to be safe (whatever that means). A review of the Robotics literature shows that the safety concept is fuzzy to say the least. It is generally assumed that the reader knows what safety means and accordingly the concept is seldom defined. Safety for slow robotic systems placed in almost stationary environments is not a key issue. The situation becomes completely different when the robotic system considered moves fast in an environment populated with moving objects (human beings, vehicles of all sorts, other robots, etc.). In this case, safety becomes critical and it is important to know what is meant by that.

This talk will address the safety issue. It will show what previous approaches offer (or do not offer) in terms of safety. It will also propose to use the concept of Inevitable Collision States as a safety measure. Ways to devise safe robotic systems in dynamic environments will be explored.