Tomás Lozano-Pérez, School of Engineering Professor of Teaching Excellence at MIT, presents "Integrated Task and Motion Planning in Belief Space" as part of the RIM Seminar Series.

Abstract
This talk describe an integrated strategy for planning, perception, state-estimation and action in complex mobile manipulation domains based on planning in the belief space of probability distributions over states, using hierarchical goal regression (pre-image back-chaining). We develop a vocabulary of logical expressions that describe sets of belief states, which are goals and subgoals in the planning process. We show that a relatively small set of symbolic operators can give rise to task-oriented perception in support of the manipulation goals. An implementation of this method is demonstrated in simulation and on a real PR2 robot, showing robust, flexible solution of mobile manipulation problems with multiple objects and substantial uncertainty.