Parallel Mining Operating Systems: From Digital Twins to Mining Intelligence

With the rapid development and modernization requirement of global coal industry, there is an emerging need for intelligent and unmanned mining systems. In this paper, the Intelligent Mining Operating System (IMOS) is proposed and developed, based on the parallel management and control of mining operating infrastructure that integrates the intelligent mining theory, the ACP-based (Artificial societies, Computational experiments, Parallel execution) parallel intelligence approaches, and the new generation of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. To satisfy the intelligent and unmanned demand of open-pit mines, the IMOS architecture is developed by integrating the theory of digital quadruplets. The main subsystems and functions of IMOS are elaborated in detail, including a single-vehicle operating subsystem, multi-vehicle collaboration subsystem, vehicle-road collaboration subsystem, unmanned intelligent subsystem, dispatch management subsystem, parallel management and control subsystem, supervisory subsystem, remote takeover subsystem, and communication subsystem. The IMOS presented in this paper is the first integrated solution for intelligent and unmanned mines in China, and has been implemented over ten main open pits in the past few years. Its deployment and utilization will effectively improve the production efficiency and safety level of open-pit mines, promote the construction of ecological mines, and bring great significance to the realization of sustainable mining development

Robot planning based on boolean specifications using petri net models

In this paper, we propose an automated method for planning a team of mobile robots such that a Boolean-based mission is accomplished. The task consists of logical requirements over some regions of interest for the agents'' trajectories and for their final states. In other words, we allow combinatorial specifications defining desired final states whose attainment includes visits to, avoidance of, and ending in certain regions. The path planning approach should select such final states that optimize a certain global cost function. In particular, we consider minimum expected traveling distance of the team and reduce congestions. A Petri net (PN) with outputs models the movement capabilities of the team and the regions of interest. The imposed specification is translated to a set of linear restrictions for some binary variables, the robot movement capabilities are formulated as linear constraints on PN markings, and the evaluations of the binary variables are linked with PN markings via linear inequalities. This allows us to solve an integer linear programming problem whose solution yields robotic trajectories satisfying the task

Correct-by-Construction Design of Contextual Robotic Missions Using Contracts

Effectively specifying and implementing robotic missions poses a set of challenges to software engineering for robotic systems. These challenges stem from the need to formalize and execute a robot's high-level tasks while considering various application scenarios and conditions, also known as contexts, in real-world operational environments. Writing correct mission specifications that explicitly account for multiple contexts can be tedious and error-prone. Furthermore, as the number of contexts, and consequently the complexity of the specification, increases, generating a correct-by-construction implementation (e.g., by using synthesis methods) can become intractable. A viable approach to address these issues is to decompose the mission specification into smaller, manageable sub-missions, with each sub-mission tailored to a specific context. Nevertheless, this compositional approach introduces its own set of challenges in ensuring the overall mission's correctness. In this paper, we propose a novel compositional framework for specifying and implementing contextual robotic missions using assume-guarantee contracts. The mission specification is structured in a hierarchical and modular fashion, allowing for each sub-mission to be synthesized as an independent robot controller. We address the problem of dynamically switching between sub-mission controllers while ensuring correctness under predefined conditions

TokenPasser: A petri net specification tool

In computer program design it is essential to know the effectiveness of different design options in improving performance, and dependability. This paper provides a description of a CAD tool for distributed hierarchical Petri nets. After a brief review of Petri nets, Petri net languages, and Petri net transducers, and descriptions of several current Petri net tools, the specifications and design of the TokenPasser tool are presented. TokenPasser is a tool to allow design of distributed hierarchical systems based on Petri nets. A case study for an intelligent robotic system is conducted, a coordination structure with one dispatcher controlling three coordinators is built to model a proposed robotic assembly system. The system is implemented using TokenPasser, and the results are analyzed to allow judgment of the tool

Programming Robots for Activities of Everyday Life

Text-based programming remains a challenge to novice programmers in\ua0all programming domains including robotics. The use of robots is gainingconsiderable traction in several domains since robots are capable of assisting\ua0humans in repetitive and hazardous tasks. In the near future, robots willbe used in tasks of everyday life in homes, hotels, airports, museums, etc.\ua0However, robotic missions have been either predefined or programmed usinglow-level APIs, making mission specification task-specific and error-prone.\ua0To harness the full potential of robots, it must be possible to define missionsfor specific applications domains as needed. The specification of missions of\ua0robotic applications should be performed via easy-to-use, accessible ways, and\ua0at the same time, be accurate, and unambiguous. Simplicity and flexibility in\ua0programming such robots are important, since end-users come from diverse\ua0domains, not necessarily with suffcient programming knowledge.The main objective of this licentiate thesis is to empirically understand the\ua0state-of-the-art in languages and tools used for specifying robot missions byend-users. The findings will form the basis for interventions in developing\ua0future languages for end-user robot programming.During the empirical study, DSLs for robot mission specification were\ua0analyzed through published literature, their websites, user manuals, samplemissions and using the languages to specify missions for supported robots.After extracting data from 30 environments, 133 features were identified.\ua0A feature matrix mapping the features to the environments was developedwith a feature model for robotic mission specification DSLs.Our results show that most end-user facing environments exist in the\ua0education domain for teaching novice programmers and STEM subjects. Mostof the visual languages are developed using Blockly and Scratch libraries.\ua0The end-user domain abstraction needs more work since most of the visualenvironments abstract robotic and programming language concepts but not\ua0end-user concepts. In future works, it is important to focus on the development\ua0of reusable libraries for end-user concepts; and further, explore how end-user\ua0facing environments can be adapted for novice programmers to learn\ua0general programming skills and robot programming in low resource settings\ua0in developing countries, like Uganda

Designing Trustworthy Autonomous Systems

The design of autonomous systems is challenging and ensuring their trustworthiness can have different meanings, such as i) ensuring consistency and completeness of the requirements by a correct elicitation and formalization process; ii) ensuring that requirements are correctly mapped to system implementations so that any system behaviors never violate its requirements; iii) maximizing the reuse of available components and subsystems in order to cope with the design complexity; and iv) ensuring correct coordination of the system with its environment.Several techniques have been proposed over the years to cope with specific problems. However, a holistic design framework that, leveraging on existing tools and methodologies, practically helps the analysis and design of autonomous systems is still missing. This thesis explores the problem of building trustworthy autonomous systems from different angles. We have analyzed how current approaches of formal verification can provide assurances: 1) to the requirement corpora itself by formalizing requirements with assume/guarantee contracts to detect incompleteness and conflicts; 2) to the reward function used to then train the system so that the requirements do not get misinterpreted; 3) to the execution of the system by run-time monitoring and enforcing certain invariants; 4) to the coordination of the system with other external entities in a system of system scenario and 5) to system behaviors by automatically synthesize a policy which is correct

Sistema de control para robots móviles autónomos basado en habilidades reactivas

Un robot autónomo móvil debe ser capaz de adaptarse de manera flexible a cambios que se produzcan en el entorno sin la necesidad de decirle qué hacer en cada momento. La aptitud de un robot de decidir cómo actuar ante una determinada situación y de reaccionar adecuadamente ante eventos para ejecutar sus tareas de manera segura va a depender de cómo estén distribuidas las capacidades de deliberación y reacción en él. La arquitectura de control híbrida AD se basa en la forma en la que se organizan los procesos mentales humanos. Consta de dos niveles: uno Deliberativo que está relacionado con la capacidad de razonar, y otro Automático que está relacionado con las capacidades de ejecutar acciones de manera automática. Uno de los objetivos de esta tesis consiste en el desarrollo del nivel Au­tomático de la arquitectura AD. Este nivel permite al robot disponer de la necesaria reactividad para responder rápidamente a cambios que se produzcan en el entorno. Está formado por habilidades automáticas que incluyen las capacidades de percepción y acción del robot y por acciones reflejas que permiten al robot responder de manera prioritaria ante determinados estímulos. En esta tesis se ha definido una estructura genérica para habilidades que facilita su programación, integración y modificación en la arquitectura de control de manera que no afecte al resto de los componentes que constituyen dicha arquitectura. Las habilidades pueden ejecutarse en paralelo, son acti­vadas por el nivel Deliberativo cuando se necesitan para llevar a cabo una determinada tarea y generan sus propios eventos notificándoselo a aquellas habilidades que se hayan registrado en ella para recibirlos. También se propone tres diferentes métodos de generación de habilidades complejas a partir de habilidades ya existentes denominados secuenciación, adición de salidas y flujo de datos. Estos tres métodos no son excluyentes sino que pueden darse en una misma habilidad. El nivel Deliberativo tiene que conocer cuales son las habilidades au­tomáticas de las que dispone para ejecutar una tarea determinada. Se presenta una base de datos que contiene información acerca de las habilidades automáticas que le puede servir al nivel Deliberativo para razonar o tomar decisiones. Por último, se propone un algoritmo de aprendizaje por refuerzo basado en redes neuronales que permite a un robot móvil aprender habilidades sensorimotoras automáticas sencillas. De esta manera, el robot es capaz de aprender a adaptarse y a reaccionar para mejorar su actuación. El algoritmo de aprendizaje propuesto trabaja con espacios de entrada y salida continuos y señal de refuerzo continua.An autonomous mobile robot must be able to flexibly adapt its behaviors without explicitly being told what to do in each situation. Robot 's decision capacity to react to events in arder to carry out its tasks safely depends on how its deliberation and reaction capacities are organized on it. The hybrid control architecture called AD is based on how mental processes are performed in humans. It has two levels: one is the Deliberative level which is related to reasoning capacity and the another is the Automatic level which is related to execution of automatic actions. One of the objectives of this PhD Thesis is to develop the Automatic level of the architecture AD. This level allows the robot to react to changes took place in the environment. It is formed by automatic skills which include the robot's perception and action capacities, and by reflex actions which allow the robot to respond with priority to a specific stimulus. A generic structure for skills is defined which makes its programming, modification and integration easier so it does not affect the other architec­ture's components. Skills can execute parallel, are activated by the Deliber­ative level and generate their own events notifying them to skills which have registered at it in order to receive the events. Three different methods are also proposed for generating complex skills from simple ones called sequencing, output addition and data fiow. These methods are not exclusive but they can be in the same skill. The Deliberative level has to know what are the available automatic skills in order to perform a task. A data base is presented which contains infor­mation about skills useful for the Deliberative level for reasoning or taking decisions. Finally, a reinforcement learning algorithm is proposed based on neural networks which allows a mobile robot to learn simple automatic sensorimotor skills. In this case, the robot is capable of learning to adapt and react in order to improve its performance. The proposed learning algorithm works with continuous inputs and outputs and continuous reinforcement signal.Doctor por la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Programa en Tecnologías IndustrialesPresidente: Carlos Balaguer Bernaldo de Quirós.- Secretario: Luis Enrique Moreno Lorente.- Vocales: Jesús Manuel de la Cruz García, Fernando Morilla García y Antonio Barriento

Bidirektionale Abbildung zwischen Geschäftsprozessmodellen und IT-Kommunikationssystemen

Wie können Menschen mit verschiedenen Kenntnissen und Erfahrungen Prozessmodelle in der digitalen Kommunikation verwenden und zugleich Systemunterstützung durch die beschriebenen Prozesse erhalten? Diese Fragestellung wird mit einer beidseitigen Transformation auf Basis natürlicher Sprache gelöst und mit praxisnahen Beispielen erläutert. So können IT-gestützte Workflows über bisher schwer überwindbare Systemgrenzen hinweg umgesetzt werden

Bidirektionale Abbildung zwischen Geschäftsprozessmodellen und IT-Kommunikationssystemen

How can people with different knowledge and experience use process models in the digital communication and at the same time how can they receive system support through the described processes? This question is solved by a mutual transformation based on natural language which is illustrated with practical examples. Thus, more widespread workflows can be implemented by incorporating system boundaries that were previously hard to overcome