OpenBots Lab

The OpenBots lab is a collaborative initiative between the Delft University of Technology (TUD) and the University of Amsterdam (UvA) dedicated to advancing Embodied AI for real-world robotics. While traditional robots often fail in unpredictable environments due to “closed-world” assumptions, OpenBots aims to transform these automated systems into truly autonomous ones by injecting common sense principles into their perception and planning processes. Operating through 2029 in partnership with the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee (KMar) and TNO, the lab supports five PhD researchers across three core lines: common sense reasoning, multimodal perception, and task execution. By integrating logic reasoning, symbolic AI, and deep learning, the project develops robots capable of navigating “open-world” shifts, with a primary research demonstrator focused on autonomous real-world surveillance using legged robots.

Sustainable Development Goals

About The Lab

Research projects

Common Sense Reasoning: This project focuses on developing new knowledge structures and reasoning methods, specifically utilizing evidence theory and abductive reasoning. The goal is to enable robots to draw logical conclusions from incomplete or uncertain observations, allowing them to make “common sense” decisions in newly encountered situations.

 

Open World Multimodal Perception: This research line aims to move robot perception beyond pre-defined datasets. It focuses on handling both sensory shifts (changes in how sensors perceive the environment) and semantic shifts (new or unknown objects), allowing robots to generalize their perception and recognize what is happening in unseen or dynamic environments.

Open World Task Execution: This project integrates model-based and model-free planning to help robots execute complex actions where data or environment models are limited. It advances semi-predictable task-planning by combining symbolic planning with reinforcement learning, enabling robots to perform complex tasks like perimeter surveillance even when they encounter unpredictable events.

People

Partners

Delft University of Technology (TUD) is a leading technical university that provides researchers for the lab’s core pillars of robotics and AI.

 

University of Amsterdam (UvA) is a prominent research university whose Video & Image Sense Lab contributes expertise in computer vision and machine learning.

 

The Netherlands Organization of Applied Scientific Research (TNO) is an independent research organization that provides a physical lab environment and validates autonomous security developments in practice.

 

Royal Netherlands Marechaussee (KMar) the military police force that provides real-world security use cases and test environments for autonomous surveillance robots.

 

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