Experiments in behavior composition

Abstract

Widespread use of mobile robots can only be achieved when framworks that enable specification, design and implementation of systems are available. These frameworks must provide a level of abstraction that enables use of the same methods for different tasks/missions to facilitate fast prototyping and design at low cost. In this paper a Task Description Language (TDL) for task specification is outlined. The tasks are specified as network of processes. The processes are described in terms of finite state machines (FSMs) and their composition is achieved via a set of composition operators, common to many process algebra models. From the obtained description of the task a Discrete Event Systems supervisory controller can be synthesized. To demonstrate that such an approach is suitable basis for description of robot tasks a set of experiments with two different platforms situated in two different laboratories is described. The elementary processes necessary to carry out these experiments are presented. Obtained results are reported for three different experiments. The results demonstrate that the presented framework has the required characteristics.