Programming by demonstration: removing sub-optimal actions in a partially known configuration space

Programming by demonstration is a promising approach to automatic robot programming, however, methods are required to remove suboptimal actions that can be demonstrated by end users. In this paper we use the partial knowledge of configuration space (C-space) derived in the previous work by Chen et al. (2000) to remove suboptimal actions from a demonstration. Our idea is to use demonstrated paths to predict what regions in C-space are obstacle free. Suboptimal actions in a demonstration are then avoided by planning alternative actions that pass through the obstacle free regions. Experimental results show the validity of the approach. A demonstrated path containing significant sub-optimality was converted by the approach into a short, efficient path suitable for execution by the robot.