Reaction based robot control

A formalized approach to reaction based control of robots equipped with sensors is presented. In the case of reaction based control a goal that is to be achieved and a single layer of actions (called reactions), that are executed when sensors detect appropriate conditions, are distinguished. Unlike the pure behavioural approach, where the partitioning of the system is intuitive, a formal method was followed. First the sensor reading space was partitioned into sub-spaces, and a reaction was associated with each of these sub-spaces. If during the realization of the goal the sensor readings “enter” a sub-space associated with a certain action, then the realization of the global goal is interrupted and the action is executed. As the sensor reading space, robot reactions and the global goal can be described formally, a formal specification of the robotic controller was obtained. It was later used as the basis for coding the software of controllers tailored to the execution of specific tasks.