A robot Control Architecture

Dear all,

I'd like to draw your attention on the work performed during the past
few years at LAAS-CNRS on robot control architectures. A comprehensive
decription of this work can be found in a paper published in the IJRR
in 98 (see: http://www.laas.fr/~felix/publis/ijrr97/index.html)

The general architecture is composed of three levels: a decision
level, an execution control level and a functional level. The later is
composed of modules that embed the functions achieving sensor data
processing and effector control. The decision level is goal and event
driven, it may have several layers, according to application.

This architecture relies on several representations and programming
paradigms. Several tools are developed to implement each level of the
architecture: a temporal planner (IxTeT), a procedural system for task
refinement and supervision (Propice), a compiled rule-based system for
the reactive control of the functional level (Kheops), and a system
called Genom for the specification and integration of modules at the
functional level.

This work, which is continuing, is the basis of several mobile robots
developement at our lab. It is also applied to other domains than
Robotics (e.g., autonomous satellites)

I think this would be of interest for Orocos. LAAS is ready to
contribute in this project.

Raja Chatila

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| Raja Chatila                     [email protected]              |
| LAAS-CNRS                        Tel: +33 (0)5 61 33 63 44 |
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