Abstract Behavior Trees (BTs) were invented as a tool to enable modular AI in computer
games, but have received an increasing amount of attention in the robotics community in the …

In this article, we provide a control-theoretic perspective on the research area of behavior
trees in robotics. The key idea underlying behavior trees is to make use of modularity …

We study the problem of learning to perform multistage robotic manipulation tasks, with
applications to cable routing, where the robot must route a cable through a series of clips …

Sequential manipulation tasks require a robot to perceive the state of an environment and
plan a sequence of actions leading to a desired goal state, where the ability to reason about …

To solve multi-step manipulation tasks in the real world, an autonomous robot must take
actions to observe its environment and react to unexpected observations. This may require …

Human-robot object handovers have been an actively studied area of robotics over the past
decade; however, very few techniques and systems have addressed the challenge of …

Every home is different, and every person likes things done in their particular way.
Therefore, home robots of the future need to both reason about the sequential nature of day …

As autonomous robots continue to be deployed near people, robots need to be able to
explain their actions. In this article, we focus on organizing and representing complex tasks …

Transfer of objects between humans and robots is a critical capability for collaborative
robots. Although there has been a recent surge of interest in human-robot handovers, most …

We present a task-and-motion planning (TAMP) algorithm robust against a human operator's
cooperative or adversarial interventions. Interventions often invalidate the current plan and …