Software systems facilitating self-adaptive control software

Abstract

Self-adaptive control software is a new paradigm to create robust, fault-tolerant mobile robots. This type of software analyzes its performance and dynamically modifies itself to operate better in adverse and rapidly changing conditions. We have created two systems that facilitate the creation of self-adaptive control software: PB3A and RAVE. PB3A, the Port-Based Adaptable Agent Architecture, is a mobile, agent-based framework that allows software to adapt itself at all levels. RAVE, the Real And Virtual Environment, is a mixed-reality simulation environment for mobile robots. Together these two systems allow for the creation, testing, and analysis of self-adaptive control software by on- and off-line simulation. We give brief overviews of PB3A and RAVE and present applications that demonstrate robotic systems using self-adaptive control software.