An approach is presented for the evolutionary development of supervised autonomous navigation capabilities for small 'backpackable' ground robots, in the context of a DARPA- sponsored program to provide robotic support to small units of dismounted warfighters. This development approach relies on the implementation of a baseline visual serving navigation capability, including tools to support operator oversight and override, which is then enhanced with semantically referenced commands and a mission scripting structure. As current and future machine perception techniques are able to automatically designate visual serving goal points, this approach should provide a natural evolutionary pathway to higher levels of autonomous operation and reduced requirements for operator intervention.
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