Reconfigurable control architecture for exploratory robots

Abstract

Robots have to perform diverse and complex tasks. To face the limitations of the computational capabilities of robot on-board control computer, it is required to split the control systems between the robot embedded and the cloud computational resources. This paper presents a reconfigurable control architecture for a robot designed to meet this requirement. The embedded computer hosts a core agent, which provides the task-independent robot capabilities. The task dependent part called the dynamic agent is loaded from the cloud when required. The two mentioned agents execute the task, additionally utilising the capabilities of the cloud. Once the task is finished the dynamic agent is destroyed and the core agent awaits new user demands, upon which it reacts by downloading a new dynamic agent. Thus a reconfigurable system results, limited only by the resources provided by the cloud. The system is presented on an example of a humanoid robot exploring a home environment in search for hazards resulting from negligence of people suffering from mild dementia.