Toward a Science of Autonomy for Physical Systems
  Our lives have been immensely improved by decades of automation research -- we are more comfortable, more productive and safer than ever before. Just imagine a world where familiar automation technologies have failed. In that world, thermostats don't work -- you have to monitor your home heating system manually. Cruise control for your car doesn't exist. Every elevator has to have a human operator to hit the right floor, most manufactured products are assembled by hand, and you have to wash your own dishes. Who would willingly adopt that world -- the world of last century -- today? Physical systems -- elevators, cars, home appliances, manufacturing equipment -- were more troublesome, ore time consuming, less safe, and far less convenient. Now, suppose we put ourselves in the place someone 20 years in the future, a future of autonomous systems. A future where transportation is largely autonomous, more efficient, and far safer; a future where dangerous occupations like mining or disaster response are performed by autonomous systems supervised remotely by humans; a future where manufacturing and healthcare are twice as productive per person-hour by having smart monitoring and readily re-tasked autonomous physical agents; a future where the elderly and infirm have 24 hour in-home autonomous support for the basic activities, both physical and social, of daily life. In a future world where these capabilities are commonplace, why would someone come back to today's world where someone has to put their life at risk to do a menial job, we lose time to mindless activities that have no intrinsic value, or be consumed with worry that a loved one is at risk in their own home? In what follows, and in a series of associated essays, we expand on these ideas, and frame both the opportunities and challenges posed by autonomous physical systems. 
Gregory D. Hager, Daniela Rus, Vijay Kumar, and Henrik Christensen
cs.CY