Control program structure of humanoid robot

Abstract

In this paper, the new control program structure for humanoid robot which consists of multi-CPU, multi-OS and multi-task is described. The method for planning action from multiple sensor information by using the production system is also described. Task program has hierarchical structure like as human being has conscious action and unconscious action. Our design concept is generality of task. We want to make a control program independently on the architecture of a robot and other tasks. We also want to make software architecture simple. Task program is divided into three levels. Tasks must communicate each other. However, if one task can communicate another task at random, the amount of communication increases exponentially. Therefore, we made a rule of task in order to make the amount of communication linearly increase. On the other hand, a robot must determine next action from multiple sensor information. We introduced the reasoning mechanism of production system for determining next action. It becomes easy to determine next action from multiple sensor input by using this method. We could make a robot grasp a block by using this method and simulator, and we confirmed the effectiveness of methods mentioned above.