An Environment For The Development Of Sensor-Based Robot Software

Abstract

In present robot systems, much time and effort is expended in implementing, testing and evaluating sensor processing algorithms and control schemes. This tends to reduce creativity in prototype development and may discourage modernization as technology improves. Therefore, we have devised a "Robot Controller Test Station" (RCTS). RCTS is an environment for implementing, testing and comparing novel adaptive control and sensor processing algorithms. This environment integrates a dynamics simulator and a real robot into a distributed processing environment. Unlike other test stations, the RCTS design emphasizes flexibility, portability, ease of modification and ease of use. The software design of RCTS makes extensive use of standardized signal names, state tables and clearly bounded control and communication blocks. Therefore, new interfaces to hardware and processing routines can be easily integrated into RCTS. The robot control problem is modularized into three levels with control processing separated from sensor processing. This six module structure and the prioritized communication scheme was chosen to reduce the response time of the robot to sensor data. This paper discusses the implementation of the design of RCTS and discuss its advantages for integrating sensors into the distributed robot control environment.