An auction behavior-based robotic architecture for service robotics

Service robots have the potential of improving the quality of life and assist with people’s daily activities. Such robots must be capable of operating over long periods of time, performing multiple tasks, and scheduling them appropriately for execution. In addition, service robots must be capable of dealing with tasks whose goals may be in conflict with each other and would need to determine, dynamically, which task to pursue in such a case. Adding to the complexity of the problem is the fact that some task requests may have time constraints—deadlines by which the task has to be completed. Given the dynamic nature of the environment, the robots must make decisions on what tasks to pursue in situations where there could be incomplete or missing information. The robots should also be capable of accepting requests for new tasks or services at runtime, while possibly working on another task. In order to achieve these requirements, this paper presents the Auction Behavior-Based Robotic Architecture that brings the following contributions: (1) it uses an auction mechanism to determine the relevance of a task to run at any given time, (2) it handles multiple user requests while dealing with potentially critical time constraints and incomplete information, (3) it enables long-term robot operation and (4) it allows for dynamic assignment of new tasks. The proposed system is validated on a physical robotic platform, the Segway RMP\(^{\circledR }\) and in simulation.