Incorporation of MATLAB into a Distributed Behavioral Robotics Architecture

1
Incorporation of MATLAB into a Distributed
Behavioral Robotics Architecture

• A. L. Nelson, L. Doitsidis, M. T. Long, K. P.
  Valavanis, and R. R. Murphy

2
Overview

• Introduction
• The Distributed Field Architecture
• Robots and Hardware
• Example Uses
• Basic robot sensor error quantification in
  outside environments
• Waypoint navigation with object avoidance
• Conclusions

3
Introduction

• Current robot research demands a versatile
  control architecture
• Heterogeneous Robots
• Outdoor environments
• Distributed Control
• Autonomous Control
• Shared Autonomy

4
Introduction

• Motivation
• Provide a unified versatile multirobot research
  platform
• Support AI and Control Theoretic work
• Unify robot control research and development
  phases for continuity and reduced development
  time
• Behavior-based robot control architectures

5
Introduction Related Work

• S. Monteiro, E. Bicho, E. A dynamical systems
  approach to behavior-based formation control,
  Robotics and Automation, 2002. Proceedings. ICRA
  '02. IEEE International Conference on, vol. 3,
  2002, pp. 2606 261.
• O. Ewerlid, C. Tidestav and M. Sternad, Real
  Time Control using Matlab and Java, Nordic
  Matlab Conference, Stockholm, October 27-28,
  1997.
• A. L. Nelson, E. Grant, T.C. Henderson,
  Evolution of neural controllers for competitive
  game playing with teams of mobile robots,
  Journal of Robotics and Autonomous Systems, vol.
  46, no. 3, pp. 135-150, Mar 2004.

6
The Distributed Field Architecture

• Distributed
• Java-based
• Descendant of SFX
• Behavior based
• Hybrid deliberative reactive architecture

7
MATLAB Support

• JMatLink Modular Support for MATLAB
• Decupling of client and server
• Modules
• MATLAB is shown as a driver implementation module

8
MATLAB Support

• MATLAB runs as full work space
• Interpreted functions and scripts
• Workspace command line strings
• All tool boxes
• Workspace accessed by JMatLink with formatted
  strings

9
MATLAB Support

• MATLAB Usage modes
• Development Phase
• Production Phase

10
Robots and Hardware

• Heterogeneous outdoor robots

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Application Basic Sensor Error Characterization

• GPS points and points calculated from odometry
  for an example linear test pattern.

12
Application Basic Sensor Error Characterization
13
Ongoing Research

• Go to goal with obstacle avoidance

14
Example Controller Block Diagram
15
Additional Experiments

• Example Fuzzy Control
• Multiple Robots
• Obstacle avoidance

16
Conclusions

• A robot control architecture for advanced
  research was presented
• Combined high-level control and modeling
  environment and a distributed behavior-based
  architecture
• Example usages demonstrate utility of the overall
  system presented

17
Acknowledgements

• This work was partially supported by a grant form
  ONR, N 000 14-03-1-786 (2132-033-LO).
• L. Doitsidis was partially supported by
  IRAKLITOS fellowships for research from the
  Technical University of Crete, EPEAEK II 88727