The long-term future of space exploration at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is dependent on the full exploitation of autonomous and adaptive systems, but mission managers are worried about the reliability of these more intelligent systems. The main focus of the workshop was to address these worries; hence, we invited NASA engineers working on autonomous and adaptive systems and researchers interested in the verification and validation of software systems. The dual purpose of the meeting was to (1) make NASA engineers aware of the verification and validation techniques they could be using and (2) make the verification and validation community aware of the complexity of the systems NASA is developing. The workshop was held 5 to 7 December 2000 at the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, California.

The Find-Life-on-Mars event of the 1997 Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Mobile Robot Competition and Exhibition featured robots trying to find and collect stationary and moving colored objects in an arena littered with real rocks. The 2- day event had 11 entries participating in both single- robot and multirobot categories, both with and without manipulators. During the event, many of the robots successfully demonstrated object recognition, obstacle avoidance, exploration, and the collection and depositing of objects.

Points were awarded for picking up objects of a specific type (ball, cube, or moving squiggle ball) and specific color (figure 2). Penalty points were deducted for he Mars Pathfinder Mission, featuring for the Find-Life-on-Mars event. The general colliding with rocks, placing an object in the concept was to have the robots locate, collect, wrong door, and traveling within the danger and deliver a variety of "life forms," zones. We also specified penalties for modifying including both stationary and moving objects. the lander, although no group took advantage Technically, the event was designed to highlight of this option. No other modification of mobile manipulation, object recognition, the environment was allowed.

The third annual AAAI Robot Competition and Exhibition was held in 1994 during the Twelfth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Seattle, Washington. The competition featured Office Delivery and Office Cleanup events, which demanded competence in navigation, object recognition, and manipulation. The competition was organized into four parts: (1) a preliminary set of trials, (2) the competition finals, (3) a public robot exhibition, and (4) a forum to discuss technical issues in AI and robotics. It also presents the results of the competition and related events and provides suggestions for the direction of future exhibitions.

The third annual AAAI Robot Competition and Exhibition was held in 1994 during the Twelfth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Seattle, Washington. The competition was designed to showcase and compare the state of the art in autonomous indoor mobile robots. The competition featured Office Delivery and Office Cleanup events, which demanded competence in navigation, object recognition, and manipulation. The competition was organized into four parts: (1) a preliminary set of trials, (2) the competition finals, (3) a public robot exhibition, and (4) a forum to discuss technical issues in AI and robotics. Over 15 robots participated in the competition and exhibition. This article describes the rationale behind the events and the rules for the competition. It also presents the results of the competition and related events and provides suggestions for the direction of future exhibitions.

The second annual Robot Competition and Exhibition sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence was held in Washington D.C. on 13-15 July 1993 in conjunction with the Eleventh National Conference on Artificial Intelligence. This article describes the robots that placed first and second in each event and compares their strategies and their resulting successes and difficulties.

Place he 1993 robot competition consisted of the Office, (2) Office Delivery, and (3) Lockheed Palo Alto Research Labs, Second Office Rearrangement. The unifying theme Place for these events was autonomous robotics in realistic office environments. The legs, and then to quickly complete a slalom office contained actual furniture, including course and recognize the finish wall. In the second event, Office Delivery, the This realistic environment was a hurdle for objective was to self-locate using an office conventional robotic sensory systems. Thinlegged map, search an area for a given object (a coffeepot), tables and chairs are nearly invisible to and then navigate to a specified sonars, as are black cabinets and bookcases to delivery area.