Programming modular robots with locally distributed predicates

Abstract

We present a high-level language for programming modular robotic systems, based on locally distributed predicates (LDP), which are distributed conditions that hold for a connected subensemble of the robotic system. An LDP program is a collection of LDPs with associated actions which are triggered on any subensemble that matches the predicate. The result is a reactive programming language which efficiently and concisely supports ensemble-level programming. We demonstrate the utility of LDP by implementing three common, but diverse, modular robotic tasks.