My Research

My topics of interest and my contributions, in collaboration with my colleagues and students, focus essentially on AI-enabled robotics (also called cognitive robotics): control architectures for autonomy, models, schemes and algorithms for robot decisional autonomy in various contexts and applications ranging from the remote autonomous robot, to multi-robot systems, to robots collaborating with humans.

Decisional abilities for Cognitive and Interactive Robots that share the task and the space with humans (Decision for HRI): The scientific challenge here is to devise and build the cognitive and interactive abilities to allow pertinent, transparent, verifiable and legible behaviors for a robot that is able to perform collaborative tasks with a human partner. My contributions to Human-Robot Interaction and more precisely Human-Robot Collaboration cover several topics needed to synthesize a pertinent and acceptable behaviour for robots which share the space and the task with the humans:

• Models, Architectures and High-level Control for Human-Robot Joint Action: I have contributed to the elaboration of schemes, models and architectures for HRI and more precisely for Human Robot Collaboration (HR Joint Action and Joint Activity) where the robot is considered as assistant or a teammate. Our approach is based on the explicit consideration of the human needs, preferences and mental state in the elaboration of robot decisions and actions (Human-Aware Task Planning).
• Human-Aware Motion and Manipulation Planning for robots in presence and/or in synergy with humans: These contributions deal with the notion Human-Aware motion and Manipulation Planning: navigation in environments populated by humans, social navigation in human environments considered as a cooperative activity, Planning safe but efficient navigation tasks, Manipulation in close vicinity with a human, Planning handovers for robots and humans. Survey and comparison of human-aware navigation planners. Users studies in HRI linked Robot motion close or in synergy with humans.
• Theory of Mind, Perspective-Taking and Affordances: One key notion in the context of cognitive and interactive robotics is Theory of Mind. Our contributions: Computing and using affordances and Perspective-Taking, Building an estimation of the Human mental state in a HRI context, Situated Dialog, Situation assessment and task-based decision based on visibility and accessibility of objects in HRI.
• User studies applied to Human-Robot Joint Action: User studies specially oriented toward the pertinence and acceptability of our contributions to HRI.

Combined Task and Motion Planning: I have contributed in various ways to this very challenging problem which involves Intricate Symbolic and Geometric Reasoning.

• A Formulation of the Manipulation Planning Problem and very early implementations of CTAMP planners
• The Asymov Planner: The first planner wich integrated effectively in unique planning framework, and in a principled manner, Symbolic and Geometric planning based on the formulation of the Manipulation Planning Problem.
• More recent contributions to Combined Task and Motion based on a refined reasoning of side effects of robot manipulation actions.
• Specific CTAMP based Task Planners: for the Handover task, for the transfer by Pivoting of heavy objects.

Multi-robot coordination and cooperation: I have contributed in various ways to the decisional and planning abilities for distributed multi-robot XSsystems.

• The Plan-Merging Paradigm: A flexible anf generic scheme for distributed multi-robot coordination and resource management.
• Multi-robot and multi UAVs Task Allocation: Several generic protocols and algorithms for plan-based multi-robot distributed task allocation and re-allocation.
• Architectures and Decisional schemes for Multi-robot cooperation: Hierarchical and distributed architectures for multi-robot cooperation - A Generic Scheme for Opportunistic multi-robot cooperation for plan execution enhancement.
• Distributed Decision in Multi UAV systems: Architecture and Planning Algorithms in Multi-UAVs Systems; Autonomous Formation Flight (re)configuration.

Control Architectures and tools for building autonomous robot systems: I have contributed in various ways, at the conceptual and practical level, to the elaboration of various Control Architectures for autonomous robots:

• Robot Control Architectures for cognitive robots: Initial and generic multi-level architectures integrating planning and time-bounded decision modules for autonomous robots.
• Robot Control Architectures for HRI: Specific contributions to the control of Cognitive and Interactive Robots that achieve tasks in presence and /or in collaboration with humans.
• Control Architectures for Multi-robot Systems: control architectures for Distributed Cooperative Multi-robot Systems.
• Control Architectures for Remote Autonomous Robots: Specific contributions to the control of Remote Autonomous Robots including Mars Rovers.
• Tools for Robotic Software Architectures: A modular design approach and associated tools for building Software Architectures for Autonomous Robots.
• Programming and Control of Flexible Assembly Cells: Contributions to programming and control of Flexible Assembly Cells composed of several robots, sensors and auxiliary devices; a Hierarchical control architecture allowing online decision and refinement of actions.

Task and Motion Planners for various contexts:

• Action and Task Planning: HTN planning for multi-robot systems and human-robot interaction, Contribution to task planning algorithms taking into account uncertainty .
• Motion Planning: Kinodynamic motion planning for UAVs, Planning Mobile Robot Navigation, Planning Grasps, Pick&Place and Assembly Tasks.