Motion Description Language-Based Topological Maps for Robot Navigation

(c) 2008 International PressFirst published in Communications in Information and Systems, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 171-184, 2008, published by International Press.Robot navigation over large areas inevitably has to rely on maps of the environment. The standard manner in which such maps are defined is through geometry, e.g. through traversability grid maps or through a division of the environment into free-space and obstacle-space. In this paper, we combine certain aspects of the geometric maps, through the notion of distinctive places, with a topological description of how these places are related. What is novel is the idea that the adjacency relation is defined by the existence of a control law that drives the robot between topologically connected places. Moreover, these maps can be automatically constructed based on the premise that the nodes correspond to places associated with a heightened control activity

Wall Following with Collision Avoidance and Mapping Using a Laser Range Finder

This report is the final project of students in ISR's 2008 Research Experiences for Undergraduates program.In this project, various approaches were analyzed as possible approaches towards wall following and mapping with implementations of select approaches designed in MDLe for the Activ Media robots provided. The laser rangefinder was utilized extensively for mapping and odometry and the indoor cricket system were used for localization. The robot has come to demonstrate good wall following ability in rather unpredictable circumstances, but the quality of the mapping can be irregular due to the poor quality of the odometry.The National Science Foundation sponsors the Research Experiences for Undergraduates program

Symbolic planning for heterogeneous robots through composition of their motion description languages

This dissertation introduces a new formalism to define compositions of interacting heterogeneous systems, described by extended motion description languages (MDLes). The properties of the composition system are analyzed and an automatic process to generate sequential atom plan is introduced. The novelty of the formalism is in producing a composed system with a behavior that could be a superset of the union of the behaviors of its generators. As robotic systems perform increasingly complex tasks, people resort increasingly to switching or hybrid control algorithms. A need arises for a formalism to compose different robotic behaviors and meet a final target. The significant work produced to date on various aspects of robotics arguably has not yet effectively captured the interaction between systems. Another problem in motion control is automating the process of planning and it has been recognized that there is a gap between high level planning algorithms and low level motion control implementation. This dissertation is an attempt to address these problems. A new composition system is given and the properties are checked. We allow systems to have additional cooperative transitions and become active only when the systems are composed with other systems appropriately. We distinguish between events associated with transitions a push-down automaton representing an MDLe can take autonomously, and events that cannot initiate transitions. Among the latter, there can be events that when synchronized with some of another push-down automaton, become active and do initiate transitions. We identify MDLes as recursive systems in some basic process algebra (BPA) written in Greibach Normal Form. By identifying MDLes as a subclass of BPAs, we are able to borrow the syntax and semantics of the BPAs merge operator (instead of defining a new MDLe operator), and thus establish closeness and decidability properties for MDLe compositions. We introduce an instance of the sliding block puzzle as a multi-robot hybrid system. We automate the process of planning and dictate how the behaviors are sequentially synthesized into plans that drive the system into a desired state. The decidability result gives us hope to abstract the system to the point that some of the available model checkers can be used to construct motion plans. The new notion of system composition allows us to capture the interaction between systems and we realize that the whole system can do more than the sum of its parts. The framework can be used on groups of heterogeneous robotic systems to communicate and allocate tasks among themselves, and sort through possible solutions to find a plan of action without human intervention or guidance