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Reliable Control Architecture with PLEXIL and ROS for Autonomous Wheeled Robots

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Advances in Computing (CCC 2017)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 735))

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Abstract

Today’s autonomous robots are being used for complex tasks, including space exploration, military applications, and precision agriculture. As the complexity of control architectures increases, reliability of autonomous robots becomes more challenging to guarantee. This paper presents a hybrid control architecture, based on the Plan Execution Interchange Language (\(\text {PLEXIL}\)), for autonomy of wheeled robots running the Robot Operating System (\(\text {ROS}\)). \(\text {PLEXIL}\) is a synchronous reactive language developed by NASA for mission critical robotic systems, while \(\text {ROS}\) is one of the most popular frameworks for robotic middle-ware development. Given the safety-critical nature of spacecraft operations, \(\text {PLEXIL}\) operational semantics has been mathematically defined, and formal techniques and tools have been developed to automatically analyze plans written in this language. The hybrid control architecture proposed in this paper is showcased in a path tracking scenario using the Husky robot platform via a Gazebo simulation. Thanks to the architecture presented in this paper, all formal analysis techniques and tools currently available to \(\text {PLEXIL}\) are now available to build reliable plans for \(\text {ROS}\)-enabled wheeled robots.

Camilo Rocha—The first two authors have been supported in part by grant DII/C008/2016 funded by Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería Julio Garavito, AK 45 No 205-59, Bogotá, D.C., Colombia

    Héctor Cadavid & Alexander Pérez

  2. Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Calle 18 No 118-250, Santiago de Cali, Colombia

    Camilo Rocha

Authors
  1. Héctor Cadavid
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  2. Alexander Pérez
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  3. Camilo Rocha
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Correspondence to Camilo Rocha .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Universidad Autónoma de Occidente, Cali, Colombia

    Andrés Solano

  2. Universidad de San Buenaventura, Cali, Colombia

    Hugo Ordoñez

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Cadavid, H., Pérez, A., Rocha, C. (2017). Reliable Control Architecture with PLEXIL and ROS for Autonomous Wheeled Robots. In: Solano, A., Ordoñez, H. (eds) Advances in Computing. CCC 2017. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 735. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66562-7_44

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66562-7_44

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-66561-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-66562-7

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