Autonomous behavior design for robotic appliance

Abstract

We consider robotic appliances, mobile and intelligent robots that perform household tasks, and study design method for autonomous behaviors of robotic appliances, a key component in human-robot and robot-environment interactions. Specifically, we develop robot behavior diagram, a visualized, robot-centric, chart-based behavior design method that is useful in describing robotic behaviors and transitions among them. This tool enables systematic construction of exhaustive set of autonomous behaviors, within the context of given set of robotic functionalities. First, the set of functionalities for a given robot is defined. Then, employing the defined functionalities, a diagram is constructed with behavioral states and events that can trigger transitions to other behaviors. For any given behavioral state, all plausible events are considered, and this is repeated until the diagram is complete with all the possible behaviors and events. We demonstrate that, via this method, a complete and robust behavioral scenario design is indeed attainable, by applying robot behavior diagram approach to an example household cleaning robot platform.