Integrating reaction and planning in a heterogeneous asynchronous architecture for mobile robot navigation

Abstract

We present an architecture for controlling autonomous mobile robots based on control of continuous activities (processes) rather than discrete actions. We define a hierarchy of activity, and argue that different levels of activities require different sorts of computational mechanisms to control them. Many controversial issues concerning the use of persistent internal state and higher levels of abstraction can be better understood in terms of this hierarchy. Two experiments using the architecture to control mobile robots performing complex navigation tasks are described.