Robot Foraging: Autonomous Sample Return in a Large Outdoor Environment

Abstract

A fundamental aspect of biological intelligence, from microbes to megafauna, is the ability to forage for the provisions required to sustain life. This sometimes underrated ability to seek out, identify, and use objects of interest in an environment with limited prior knowledge is an important capability that is also needed by robots. Many robotics applications can be modeled as foraging problems, such as search and rescue, wildlife tracking, crop pollination and harvesting, mining and in-situ-resource utilization, and scientific data/sample collection.