AMPLE: an anytime planning and execution framework for dynamic and uncertain problems in robotics

Acting in robotics is driven by reactive and deliberative reasonings which take place in the competition between execution and planning processes. Properly balancing reactivity and deliberation is still an open question for harmonious execution of deliberative plans in complex robotic applications. We propose a flexible algorithmic framework to allow continuous real-time planning of complex tasks in parallel of their executions. Our framework, named AMPLE, is oriented towards robotic modular architectures in the sense that it turns planning algorithms into services that must be generic, reactive, and valuable. Services are optimized actions that are delivered at precise time points following requests from other modules that include states and dates at which actions are needed. To this end, our framework is divided in two concurrent processes: a planning thread which receives planning requests and delegates action selection to embedded planning softwares in compliance with the queue of internal requests, and an execution thread which orchestrates these planning requests as well as action execution and state monitoring. We show how the behavior of the execution thread can be parametrized to achieve various strategies which can differ, for instance, depending on the distribution of internal planning requests over possible future execution states in anticipation of the uncertain evolution of the system, or over different underlying planners to take several levels into account. We demonstrate the flexibility and the relevance of our framework on various robotic benchmarks and real experiments that involve complex planning problems of different natures which could not be properly tackled by existing dedicated planning approaches which rely on the standard plan-then-execute loop

The cooperation agreement beetwen the university of l'Aquila, Italy and the Marat Ospanov west-Kazakistan stare medical university, the republic of Kazakistan: a successful story fron academy to bench

During the spring-summer of 2014, the first exchange program foreseen the research mobility from Kazakhstan to Italy. An academic staff member and a PhD student of the Marat Ospanov WestKazakhstan State Medical University spent three months of research internship to the Laboratories of Reproductive Biotechnology, University of L’Aquila. The research topic focused on one of the most dramatic environmental problems, the desiccation of the Aral Sea, which is having serious effects on the human health due to the consequent abuse of pesticides for agricultural purposes. The project, activated in the framework of the Cooperation Agreement, was finalized to study the female reproductive toxicity, with a morphological approach, of one of the most persistent pesticide found in the Aral Sea area, the γ-exachloroexane or Lindane. Thank to the use of Scanning Electron Microscopy and Transmission Electron Microscopy of the Centre for Electron Microscopies, University of L’Aquila and the Laboratory of Electron Microscopy “Pietro Motta”, La Sapienza University of Rome, it have been producing evidences of the dose-dependant harmful effects against granulosa cells and oocytes in mammals. Part of results has been used for an undergraduate thesis and a PhD dissertation. The study is still ongoing but preliminary results have been diffused to national (Italian) and international Congresses as oral communication and poster presentations. Manuscripts to be submitted in peer reviewed journals are in preparation