Plan execution based on active perception: Adding hints to plans
In this paper we present a complete control architecture for a mobile robot which enables it to achieve a set of proposed goals with a high degree of autonomy and to react to the changing environment in real time. Autonomy and robustness are achieved through careful selection and incremental implementation of a set of basic Motor-Behaviors that interpret the sensor readings (sonar, vision and odometric sensors) and actuate the motors. The plan is provided by a user, and is expressed as a sequence of goals and a series of hints on how to achieve them. These hints are based on the user's knowledge of the environment and of the robot's behavioral and perceptual abilities. A new set of behaviors, called Conductor-Behaviors, which inspect and modify Motor-Behaviors' attributes, have been introduced in order to Link the robot's Motor-Behaviors to the user's plan. Finally, a canonical set of symbols, attached to the Motor-Behaviors, serves as well grounded symbols that the user can utilize to express the plans. We also report experimental results with a real robot that demonstrate how plans expressed as goals and hints to achieve them improve the robot's performance.
plan execution active perception autonomous robots distributed architectures behavior based systems sensor fusion