Becoming Knowingly Interactive with Sensors and Actuators

Contents

In order for a mobile robot to accomplish a non-trivial task, the task must be described in terms of primitive actions of the robot’s actuators. We claim that the transformation from the high level task description to the primitive actions should occur primarily at execution time, when information about the environment can be obtained through sensors. Our claim is based on the premise that proper application of knowledge in the integration and utilization of sensors and actuators increases the robustness of execution. This paper addresses the issue of what knowledge needs to be known about sensors, actuators and processes in order to be able to use them. The proposed method of execution works for any sensor/actuator existing on the robot when given such knowledge.