Relay Robotics proposes levels of autonomous navigation for indoor robots - The Robot Report

There is no widely adopted standard for levels of autonomous navigation for indoor robots.

Indoor mobile robots have enjoyed nowhere near the fame that self-driving cars have, but they’ve evolved substantially in the past decade as well.

The more advanced the navigation skills of the robot, the less complicated the installation process tends to be.

Multi-floor navigation is orthogonal to 2D navigation skill and robots of every navigation level could potentially access it.

Level 1 robots need extensive changes to a building’s infrastructure during installation leading to significant cost.

Level 2 robots operating at Level 2 are AGVs that do not need physical path definition but still rely on paths that are digitally defined.

Level 3 robots can be used in unstructured environments where they can navigate alongside humans.

Level 4 robots should never need human intervention to navigate.

The use of doors, elevators, and other shared resources in a building have their own implicit set of rules.

In addition, robots need to follow certain social norms while using these resources.