A Decision-Theoretic Approach to Cooperative Control and Adjustable Autonomy

Abstract

Cooperative control can help overcome the limitations of autonomous systems (AS) by introducing a supervision unit (SU) (human or another system) into the control loop and creating adjustable autonomy. We present a decision-theoretic approach to accomplish this using Mixed Markov Decision Processes (MI-MDPs). The solution is an optimal plan that tells the AS what actions to perform as well as when to request SU attention or transfer control to the SU. This provides a varying degree of autonomy, particularly suitable for robots exploring a domain with regions that are too complex or risky for autonomous operation, or intelligent vehicles operating in heavy traffic.