The 17th Annual AAAI Robot Exhibition and Manipulation and Mobility Workshop

The workshop focused on possible solutions to both technical and organizational challenges to mobility and manipulation research. This article presents the highlights of that discussion along with the content of the accompanying exhibits. Fortunately, these applications can be successful through simple repetitive behaviors or remote human operation. However, useful autonomy needed for operation in general situations requires advanced mobility and manipulation. Opening doors, retrieving specific items, and maneuvering in cluttered environments are required for useful deployment in anything but the most controlled environment. The mobile manipulation skills necessary to perform tasks in arbitrary environments may not result from current approaches to robotics and AI. Moving toward true robot autonomy may require new paradigms, hardware, and ways of thinking. The goal of the AAAI 2008 Workshop on Mobility and Manipulation was not only to demonstrate current research successes to the AAAI community but also to road-map future mobility and manipulation challenges that create synergies between artificial intelligence and robotics. The half-day workshop included both a session on the exhibits and a panel discussion. The panel consisted of five prominent researchers who led a discussion of future directions for mobility and manipulation research.