Organizational Unit:

Mobile Robot Laboratory

Permanent Link

https://hdl.handle.net/1853/70779

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Organizational Unit

College of Computing

ArchiveSpace Name Record

https://finding-aids.library.gatech.edu/agents/corporate_entities/1110

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Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 38

Evaluating the Usability of Robot Programming Toolsets

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 1997-10-14) Arkin, Ronald C. ; MacKenzie, Douglas Christopher

The days of specifying missions for mobile robots using traditional programming languages such as C++ and LISP are coming to an end. The need to support operators lacking programming skills coupled with the increasing diversity of robot run-time operating systems is moving the field towards high-level robot programming toolsets which allow graphical mission specification. This paper explores the issues of evaluating such toolsets as to their usability. This article first examines how usability criteria are established and performance target values chosen. The methods by which suitable experiments are created to gather data relevant to the usability criteria are then presented. Finally, methods to analyze the data gathered to establish values for the usability criteria are discussed. The MissionLab toolset is used as a concrete example throughout the article to ground the discussions, but the methods and techniques are generalizable to many such systems.
Cooperative Multiagent Robotic Systems

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 1997) Arkin, Ronald C. ; Balch, Tucker
Design and Implementation of a Teleautonomous Hummer

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 1997) Ali, Khaled Subhi ; Arkin, Ronald C. ; Balch, Tucker ; Bentivegna, Darrin Charles

Autonomous and semi-autonomous full-sized ground vehicles are becoming increasingly important, particularly in military applications. Here we describe the instrumentation of one such vehicle, a 4-wheel drive Hummer, for autonomous robotic operation. Actuators for steering, brake, and throttle have been implemented on a commercially available Hummer. Control is provided by on-board and remote computation. On-board computation includes a PC-based control computer coupled to feedback sensors for the steering wheel, brake, and forward speed; and a Unix workstation for high-level control. A radio link connects the on-board computers to an operator's remote workstation running the Georgia Tech MissionLab system. The paper describes the design and implementation of this integrated hardware/software system that translates a remote human operator's commands into directed motion of the vehicle. Telerobotic control of the hummer has been demonstrated in outdoor experiments.
Model-Based Reconfiguration of Schema-Based Reactive Control Architectures

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 1997) Chen, Zhong ; Goel, Ashok K. ; Rowland, Paul ; Stroulia, Eleni

Reactive methods of control get caught in local minima. Fortunately schema-based reactive control systems have built-in redundancy that enables multiple configurations with different modes. We describe a model-based method that exploits this redundancy, and, under certain conditions, reconfigures schema-based reactive control systems trapped in behavioral cycles due to the presence of local minima. The qualitative model specifies the functions and modes of the perceptual and motor schemas, and represents the reactive architecture as a structure-behavior-function model. The model-based method monitors the reactive processing, detects failures in the form of behavioral cycles, analyzes the processing trace, identifies potential modifications, and reconfigures the reactive architecture. We report on experiments with a simulated robot navigating a complex space.
Integrating RL and Behavior-Based Control for Soccer

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 1997) Balch, Tucker
Learning of Parameter-Adaptive Reactive Controllers for Robotic Navigation

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 1997) Ramesh, Ashwin ; Santamaria, Juan Carlos

Reactive controllers are widely used in mobile robots because they are able to achieve successful performance in real-time. However, the configuration of a reactive controller depends highly on the operating conditions of the robot and the environment; thus, a reactive controller configured for one class of environments may not perform adequately in another. This paper presents a formulation of parameter-adaptive reactive controllers. Parameter-adaptive reactive controllers inherit all the advantages of traditional reactive controllers, but in addition they are able to adjust themselves to the current operating conditions of the robot and the environment in order to improve task performance. Additionally, the paper describes a multistrategy learning algorithm that combines ideas from case-based reasoning and reinforcement learning to construct a mapping between the operating conditions of the mobile robot and the appropriate controller configuration; this mapping is in turn used to adapt the controller configuration dynamically. The algorithm is implemented and evaluated in a robotic navigation system that controls a Denning MRV-III mobile robot.
Multiagent Teleautonomous Behavioral Control

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 1997) Ali, Khaled Subhi ; Arkin, Ronald C.

Multiagent schema-based reactive robotic systems are complemented with the addition of a new behavior controlled by a human operator. This enables the whole society to be affected as a group rather than forcing the operator to control each agent individually. The operator is viewed by the reactive control system as another behavior exerting his/her influence on the society as a whole. The operator can also control the overall personality of the robot group. Simulation results are presented for foraging, vacuuming, and herding tasks. Results on real robots are presented for manuevering robots out of a box canyon and squeezing robots through a small space. Teleautonomous operation of multiagent reactive systems was demonstrated to be significantly useful for some tasks, less so for others.
Ecological Robotics: A Schema-Theoretic Approach

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 1997) Arkin, Ronald C. ; Cervantes-Pérez, Francisco ; Weitzenfeld, Alfredo

The goals of this joint U.S.-Mexico research project are threefold: to provide an understanding and means by which fielded robotic systems are not competing with other agents that are more effective at their designated task; to permit them to be successful competitors within the ecological system and capable of displacing less efficient agents; and that they are ecologically sensitive so that agent environment dynamics are well-modeled and as predictable as possible whenever new robotic technology is introduced. Initial studies on neuroscientifically derived schema models of the praying mantis and frog are reported that have led to simulation studies and eventual robotic implementations that can provide guidance to neuroscientists, ethologists, and roboticists alike.
Social Entropy: a New Metric for Learning Multi-Robot Teams

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 1997) Balch, Tucker

As robotics research expands into multiagent tasks and learning, investigators need new tools for evaluating the artificial robot societies they study. Is it enough, for example, just to say a team is "heterogeneous?" Perhaps heterogeneity is more properly viewed on a sliding scale. To address these issues this paper presents new metrics for learning robot teams. The metrics evaluate diversity in societies of mechanically similar but behaviorally heterogeneous agents. Behavior is an especially important dimension of diversity in learning teams since, as they learn, agents choose between hetero- or homogeneity based solely on their behavior. This paper introduces metrics of behavioral difference and behavioral diversity. Behavioral difference refers to disparity between two specific agents, while diversity is a measure of an entire society. Social Entropy, inspired by Shannon's Information Entropy [5], is proposed as a metric of behavioral diversity. It captures important components of diversity including the number and size of castes in a society. The new metrics are illustrated in the evaluation of an example learning robot soccer team.
Multiagent Mission Specification and Execution

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 1997) Arkin, Ronald C. ; Cameron, Jonathan M. ; MacKenzie, Douglas Christopher

Specifying a reactive behavioral configuration for use by a multiagent team requires both a careful choice of the behavior set and the creation of a temporal chain of behaviors which executes the mission. This difficult task is simplified by applying an object-oriented approach to the design of the mission using a construction called an assemblage and a methodology called temporal sequencing. The assemblage construct allows building high level primitives which provide abstractions for the designer. Assemblages consist of groups of basic behaviors and coordination mechanisms that allow the group to be treated as a new coherent behavior. Upon instantiation, the assemblage is parameterized based on the specific mission requirements. Assemblages can be re-parameterized and used in other states within a mission or archived as high level primitives for use in subsequent projects. Temporal sequencing partitions the mission into discrete operating states with perceptual triggers causing transitions between those states. Several smaller independent configurations (assemblages) can then be created which each implement one state. The Societal Agent theory is presented as a basis for constructions of this form. The Configuration Description Language (CDL) is developed to capture the recursive composition of configurations in an architecture- and robot-independent fashion. The MissionLab system, an implementation based on CDL, supports the graphical construction of configurations using a visual editor. Various multiagent missions are demonstrated in simulation and on our Denning robots using these tools.