Behavior-Based Fuzzy Control for Mobile Robot Navigation

A new behavior-based fuzzy control method for mobile robot navigation is presented. It is based on behavioral architecture which can deal with uncertainties in unknown environments and has the ability to accommodate different behaviors. Basic behaviors are controlled by specific fuzzy logic controllers, respectively. The proposed approach qualifies for driving a robot to reach a target while avoiding obstacles in the environment. Simulation and experiments are performed to verify the correctness and feasibility of the proposed method

Emotion-based Parameter Modulation for a Mobile Robot Planning and Control System

The hypothesis that artificial emotion-like mechanisms can improve the adaptive performance of robots and intelligent systems has gained considerable support in recent years. While artificial emotions are typically employed to facilitate human-machine interaction, this thesis instead focuses on modelling emotions and affect in a non-social context. In particular, affective mechanisms are applied to the problem of mobile robot navigation. A three-layered reactive/deliberative controller is developed and implemented, resulting in several contributions to the field of mobile robot control. Rather than employing a reactive layer, a deliberative layer and an interface between them, the control problem is decomposed into three different conceptual spaces - position space, direction space and velocity space - with a distinct control layer applied to each. Existing directional and velocity space approaches such as the vector field histogram (VFH) and dynamic window methods employ different underlying mechanisms and terminology. This thesis unifies these approaches in order to compare and combine them. The weighted sum objective functions employed by some existing approaches that inspired the presented directional and velocity control layers are replaced by weighted products. This enables some hard constraints to be relaxed in favour of weighted contributions, potentially improving a system's flexibility without sacrificing safety (but coming at a cost to efficiency). An affect model is developed that conceptualises emotions and other affective interactions as modulations of cognitive processes. Unlike other models of affect-modulated cognition (e.g. Dorner and Hille, 1995), this model is designed specifically to address problems relating to mobile robot navigation. The role of affect in this model is to continuously adapt a controller's behaviour patterns in response to different environments and momentary conditions encountered by the robot. Affective constructs such as moods and emotions are represented as intensity values that arise from hard-coded interpretations of local stimuli, as well as from learned associations stored in global maps. They are expressed as modulations of control parameters and location-specific biases to path-planning. Extensive simulation experiments are conducted in procedurally-generated environments to assess the performance contributions of this model and its individual components

A Hierarchical Hybrid Architecture for Mission-Oriented Robot Control

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03413-3_26In this work is presented a general architecture for a multi physical agent network system based on the coordination and the behaviour management. The system is organised in a hierarchical structure where are distinguished the individual agent actions and the collective ones linked to the whole agent network. Individual actions are also organised in a hybrid layered system that take advantages from reactive and deliberative control. Sensing system is involved as well in the behaviour architecture improving the information acquisition performance.This work has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the CICYT project Mission Based Control (COBAMI): DPI2011-28507-C02-02, under coordinated project High Integrity Partitioned Embedded Systems (Hi-PartES): TIN2011-28567-C03-03, and under the collaborative research project supported by the European Union MultiPARTES Project: FP7-ICT 287702. 2011-14.Muñoz Alcobendas, M.; Munera Sánchez, E.; Blanes Noguera, F.; Simó Ten, JE. (2013). A Hierarchical Hybrid Architecture for Mission-Oriented Robot Control. En ROBOT2013: First Iberian Robotics Conference: Advances in Robotics, Vol. 1. Springer. 363-380. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03413-3_26S363380Aragues, R.: Consistent data association in multi-robot systems with limited communications. Robotics: Science and Systems, 97–104 (2010)Aragues, R., Cortes, J., Sagues, C.: Distributed consensus on robot networks for dynamically merging feature-based maps. IEEE Transactions on Robotics (2012)Arkin, R.C.: Motor schema based mobile robot navigation. The International Journal of Robotics Research 8(4), 92–112 (1989)Asama, H., Habib, M.K., Endo, I., Ozaki, K., Matsumoto, A., Ishida, Y.: Functional distribution among multiple mobile robots in an autonomous and decentralized robot system. In: Proceedings of the 1991 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. IEEE (1991)Benet, G., Blanes, F., Martínez, M., Simó, J.: A multisensor robot distributed architecture. In: IFAC Conference INCOM 1998 (1998)Brooks, R.: A robust layered control system for a mobile robot. IEEE Journal of Robotics and Automation 2(1), 14–23 (1986)Canas, J.M., Matellán, V.: Dynamic schema hierarchies for an autonomous robot. In: Garijo, F.J., Riquelme, J.-C., Toro, M. (eds.) IBERAMIA 2002. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 2527, pp. 903–912. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)Choset, H., Nagatani, K.: Topological simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM): toward exact localization without explicit localization. IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation 17(2), 125–137 (2001)Fox, D., Burgard, W., Dellaert, F., Thrun, S.: Monte carlo localization: Efficient position estimation for mobile robots. American Association for Artificial Intelligence, 343–349 (1999)Hu, J., Xie, L., Xu, J.: Vision-based multi-agent cooperative target search. In: Control Automation Robotics & Vision (ICARCV), pp. 895–900 (2012)Huq, R., Mann, G.K.I., Gosine, R.G.: Behavior-modulation technique in mobile robotics using fuzzy discrete event system. IEEE Transactions on Robotics 22(5), 903–916 (2006)Jayasiri, A., Mann, G., Gosine, R.G.: Mobile robot behavior coordination using supervisory control of fuzzy discrete event systems. In: IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IROS 2009, pp. 690–695 (2009)Jayasiri, A., Mann, G.K.I., Gosine, R.G.: Behavior coordination of mobile robotics using supervisory control of fuzzy discrete event systems. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part B: Cybernetics 41(5), 1224–1238 (2011)Koenig, N., Howard, A.: Gazebo-3d multiple robot simulator with dynamics. Technical report (2006)Lin, F., Ying, H.: Modeling and control of fuzzy discrete event systems. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part B: Cybernetics 32(4), 408–415 (2002)Madden, J.D.: Multi-robot system based on model of wolf hunting behavior to emulate wolf and elk interactions. In: 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics, ROBIO, pp. 1043–1050 (2010)Mataric, M.J.: Interaction and intelligent behavior. Technical report, DTIC Document (1994)Olivera, V.M., Molina, J.M., Sommaruga, L., et al.: Fuzzy cooperation of autonomous robots. 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A systematic literature review of decision-making and control systems for autonomous and social robots

In the last years, considerable research has been carried out to develop robots that can improve our quality of life during tedious and challenging tasks. In these contexts, robots operating without human supervision open many possibilities to assist people in their daily activities. When autonomous robots collaborate with humans, social skills are necessary for adequate communication and cooperation. Considering these facts, endowing autonomous and social robots with decision-making and control models is critical for appropriately fulfiling their initial goals. This manuscript presents a systematic review of the evolution of decision-making systems and control architectures for autonomous and social robots in the last three decades. These architectures have been incorporating new methods based on biologically inspired models and Machine Learning to enhance these systems’ possibilities to developed societies. The review explores the most novel advances in each application area, comparing their most essential features. Additionally, we describe the current challenges of software architecture devoted to action selection, an analysis not provided in similar reviews of behavioural models for autonomous and social robots. Finally, we present the future directions that these systems can take in the future.The research leading to these results has received funding from the projects: Robots Sociales para Estimulación Física, Cognitiva y Afectiva de Mayores (ROSES), RTI2018-096338-B-I00, funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades; Robots sociales para mitigar la soledad y el aislamiento en mayores (SOROLI), PID2021-123941OA-I00, funded by Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI), Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación. This publication is part of the R&D&I project PLEC2021-007819 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by the European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR

Mobile Robots Navigation

Mobile robots navigation includes different interrelated activities: (i) perception, as obtaining and interpreting sensory information; (ii) exploration, as the strategy that guides the robot to select the next direction to go; (iii) mapping, involving the construction of a spatial representation by using the sensory information perceived; (iv) localization, as the strategy to estimate the robot position within the spatial map; (v) path planning, as the strategy to find a path towards a goal location being optimal or not; and (vi) path execution, where motor actions are determined and adapted to environmental changes. The book addresses those activities by integrating results from the research work of several authors all over the world. Research cases are documented in 32 chapters organized within 7 categories next described

Методы планирования пути в среде с препятствиями (обзор)

Planning the path is the most important task in the mobile robot navigation. This task involves basically three aspects. First, the planned path must run from a given starting point to a given endpoint. Secondly, it should ensure robot’s collision-free movement. Thirdly, among all the possible paths that meet the first two requirements it must be, in a certain sense, optimal.Methods of path planning can be classified according to different characteristics. In the context of using intelligent technologies, they can be divided into traditional methods and heuristic ones. By the nature of the environment, it is possible to divide planning methods into planning methods in a static environment and in a dynamic one (it should be noted, however, that a static environment is rare). Methods can also be divided according to the completeness of information about the environment, namely methods with complete information (in this case the issue is a global path planning) and methods with incomplete information (usually, this refers to the situational awareness in the immediate vicinity of the robot, in this case it is a local path planning). Note that incomplete information about the environment can be a consequence of the changing environment, i.e. in a dynamic environment, there is, usually, a local path planning.Literature offers a great deal of methods for path planning where various heuristic techniques are used, which, as a rule, result from the denotative meaning of the problem being solved. This review discusses the main approaches to the problem solution. Here we can distinguish five classes of basic methods: graph-based methods, methods based on cell decomposition, use of potential fields, optimization methods, фтв methods based on intelligent technologies.Many methods of path planning, as a result, give a chain of reference points (waypoints) connecting the beginning and end of the path. This should be seen as an intermediate result. The problem to route the reference points along the constructed chain arises. It is called the task of smoothing the path, and the review addresses this problem as well.Планирование пути — важнейшая задача в области навигации мобильных роботов. Эта задача включает в основном три аспекта. Во-первых, спланированный путь должен пролегать от заданной начальной точки к заданной конечной точке. Во-вторых, этот путь должен обеспечивать движение робота с обходом возможных препятствий. В-третьих, путь должен среди всех возможных путей, удовлетворяющих первым двум требованиям, быть в определенном смысле оптимальным.Методы планирования пути можно классифицировать по разным признакам. В контексте использования интеллектуальных технологий их можно разделить на традиционные методы и эвристические методы. По характеру окружающей обстановки можно разделить методы планирования на методы планирования в статической окружающей среде и в динамической среде (следует, однако, отметить, что статическая окружающая среда редко встречается на практике). Методы также можно разделить по полноте информации об окружающей среде: методы с полной информацией (в таком случае говорят о глобальном планировании пути) и методы с неполной информацией (обычно речь идет о знании обстановки в непосредственной близости от робота, в этом случае речь идет о локальном планировании пути). Отметим, что неполная информация об окружающей среде может быть следствием меняющейся обстановки, т.е. в условиях динамической среды планирование пути, как правило, локальное.В литературе предложено большое количество методов планирования пути, в которых используются различные эвристические приемы, вытекающие, как правило, из содержательного смысла решаемой задачи. В настоящем обзоре  рассматриваются основные подходы к решению задачи. Здесь можно выделить пять классов основных методов: методы на основе графов, методы на основе клеточной декомпозиции, использование потенциальных полей, оптими­зационные методы, методы на основе интеллектуальных технологий.Многие методы планирования пути в качестве результата дают цепь опорных точек (путевых точек), соединяющую начало и конец пути. Это следует рассматривать как промежуточный результат. Возникает задача прокладки пути вдоль построенной цепи опорных точек, называемая задачей сглаживания пути. Этой задаче в обзоре также уделено внимание