Flexible control architecture for mobile robots: an application for a walking robot

Abstract

To get the best features of both deliberative and reactive controllers, present mobile robot control architectures are designed to accommodate both types of controller. However, these architectures are still very rigidly structured thus deliberative modules are always assigned to the same role as a high-level planner or sequencer while low-level reactive modules are still the ones directly interacting with the robot environment. Furthermore, within these architectures communication and interface between modules are if not strongly established, they are very complex thus making them unsuitable for simple robotic systems. Our idea in this paper is to present a control architecture that is flexible in the sense that it can easily integrate both reactive and deliberative modules but not necessarily restricting the role of each type of controller. Communication between modules is through simple arbitration schemes while interface is by connecting a common communication line between modules and simple read and/or write access of data objects. On top of these features, the proposed control architecture is scalable and exhibits graceful degradation when some of the modules fail, similar to the present mobile robot architectures. Our idea has enabled our four-legged robot to walk autonomously in a structured uneven terrain.