Introduction to

Mobile Robotics

Robot Control Paradigms

Wolfram Burgard

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Classical / Hierarchical Paradigm

Sense Plan Act

 70s
 Focus on automated reasoning and knowledge
representation
 STRIPS (Stanford Research Institute Problem
Solver): Perfect world model, closed world
assumption
 Find boxes and move them to the designated
position
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Stanford CART 1973

Stanford AI Laboratory / CMU (Moravec)

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Classical Paradigm
Stanford Cart

1. Take nine images of the environment, identify

interesting points in one image, and use other
images to obtain depth estimates.
2. Integrate information into global world model.
3. Correlate images with previous image set to
estimate robot motion.
4. On basis of desired motion, estimated motion,
and current estimate of environment, determine
direction in which to move.
5. Execute the motion.
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Classical Paradigm as
Horizontal/Functional Decomposition

Motor Control
Perception

Execute
Model

Plan
Sense Plan Act

Sensing Action

Environment

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Reactive / Behavior-based Paradigm

Sense Act

 No models: “The world is its own, best

model”
 Early successes, but also limitations
 Investigate biological systems

6
Reactive Paradigm as
Vertical Decomposition

Explore

Wander

Avoid obstacles

Sensing Action
Environment
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Characteristics of Reactive Paradigm
 Situated agent, robot is integral part of its
environment.
 No memory, controlled by what is
happening in the world.
 Tight coupling between perception and
action via behaviors.
 Only local, behavior-specific sensing is
permitted (ego-centric representation).

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Behaviors
 … are a direct mapping of sensory
inputs to a pattern of motor actions
that are then used to achieve a task.
 … serve as the basic building blocks
for robot actions, and the overall
behavior of the robot is emergent.
 … support good software design
principles due to modularity.

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Subsumption Architecture
 Introduced by Rodney Brooks ‘86.
 Behaviors are networks of sensing and
acting modules (augmented finite
state machines AFSM).
 Modules are grouped into layers of
competence.
 Layers can subsume lower layers.
 No internal state!

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Level 0: Avoid

Polar plot of sonars

Feel force Run away Turn

force heading

polar heading
Sonar
plot encoders

Collide Forward
halt

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Level 1: Wander

heading

Wander Avoid
force modified
heading

Feel force Run away s Turn

force
heading
polar heading
Sonar
plot encoders

Collide Forward
halt

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 Level 2: Follow Corridor
Stay in distance, direction traveled
Integrate
Look middle heading
corridor to middle

s
Wander Avoid
force modified
heading

Feel force
force
Run away s Turn
heading
polar heading
Sonar
plot encoders

Collide Forward
halt

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Potential Field Methods
 Treat robot as particle acting under the
influence of a potential field
 Robot travels along the derivative of the
potential
 Field depends on obstacles, desired travel
directions and targets
 Resulting field (vector) is given by the
summation of primitive fields
 Strength of field may change with distance
to obstacle/target
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Primitive Potential Fields

Uniform Perpendicular

Attractive Repulsive Tangential

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Corridor Following with
Potential Fields
 Level 0 (collision avoidance)
is done by the repulsive fields of detected
obstacles.
 Level 1 (wander)
adds a uniform field.
 Level 2 (corridor following)
replaces the wander field by three fields
(two perpendicular, one uniform).

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Characteristics of Potential Fields

 Suffer from local minima

Goal

 Backtracking
 Random motion to escape local minimum
 Procedural planner s.a. wall following
 Increase potential of visited regions
 Avoid local minima by harmonic functions

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Characteristics of Potential Fields

 No preference among layers

 Easy to visualize
 Easy to combine different fields
 High update rates necessary
 Parameter tuning important

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Reactive Paradigm
 Representations?
 Good software engineering principles?
 Easy to program?
 Robustness?
 Scalability?

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Hybrid Deliberative/Reactive
Paradigm

Plan

Sense Act

 Combines advantages of previous paradigms

 World model used for planning
 Closed loop, reactive control

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Discussion
 Imagine you want your robot to perform
navigation tasks, which approach would you
choose?
 What are the benefits and drawbacks of the
behavior based paradigm?
 What are drawbacks of the subsumption
architecture?

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