In robotics, the kidnapped robot problem is the situation where an autonomous robot in operation is carried to an arbitrary location.Howie M. Choset et al. (2005). Principles of robot motion: theory, algorithms, and implementation. p.302.
The kidnapped robot problem creates significant issues with the robot's localization system, and only a subset of localization algorithms can successfully deal with the uncertainty created; it is commonly used to test a robot's ability to recover from catastrophic localization failures.
See also Exploration problem Wake-up robot problem
References