We, as humans, navigate efficiently in novel environments with the help of our prior knowledge about the semantic meaning of the environment. We also create a high level abstraction of maps and actions to take when making decisions during navigation. For example, entering a room will probably not lead us to a faraway goal but to a dead end, and walking through a hallway is probably faster. However, classical robot navigation methods do not use the knowledge above. The main goal of this project is to have our robots navigate in novel environments to a specified location as quickly as possible.

“I am participating in SuperUROP because I hope I can extend my knowledge about the bleeding edge of robotics research. I am super-excited to study more advanced technology in robotics.”