Plan execution monitoring and control architecture for mobile robots

TLDR: The authors decompose robot functions into modules organized according to their predefined interactions: sensor modules that accomplish various processings on data from physical sensors, effector modules that issue commands to effectors, servo-processes that establish links between perception and action to achieve closed-loop behaviors, and functional units that provide specific functionalities.

Abstract: This paper deals with the architecture and control structure of mobile robots. The authors decompose robot functions into modules organized according to their predefined interactions: sensor modules that accomplish various processings on data from physical sensors, effector modules that issue commands to effectors, servo-processes that establish links between perception and action to achieve closed-loop behaviors, and functional units that provide specific functionalities. These modules, and hence the robot system itself, are controlled by a control system that also enables the robot to execute missions (plans) expressed in a command language. The authors introduce and discuss a generic control system structure, composed of a supervisor that interprets the plan and oversees its execution, an executive for operating and managing robot modules and resources, a surveillance manager for detecting and reacting to asynchronous events, and an error recovery module for local plan mending and correction. Several experimental examples are given. >