Behavior based control of mobile robot via voting technique

Abstract

Behavior-based control employs a set of distributed, interacting modules, called behaviors that collectively achieve the desired system-level behavior. One typical issue in behavior-based control systems is the formulation of effective mechanisms for coordination of the behaviors’ activities in assuring that the mobile robot act in the correct action in accordance to its surroundings environment. This is what is known as action selection Action Selection Problem (ASP). An Action Selection Mechanism (ASM) is basically a mechanism with the main intention of solving the concerns raised in the ASP. There are basically 2 types of ASM mainly Arbitration and Command Fusion. The difference between Arbitration and Command Fusion are Arbitrary ASM allow one or one set of behaviors to take control at any one time.Command Fusion ASMs allow multiple behaviors to contribute to final control of the mobile robot.Voting technique is one of the strategies under the competitive methods used for behavior coordination in mobile robotics. Each behavior developed for a particular mobile robot shall generate a vote for a set of possible robot actions. A typical vote value of zero would normally mean the least desired action and a vote value of one shall mean that the particular action is most desired. These behaviors send votes as a possibility for each action set to achieve the objectives of the behaviors. An arbiter then performs command fusion and selects the most favoured action that is with the highest vote value. This project report will focus on the realization of a behavior based control for a mobile robot using the voting technique.