No Arabic abstract
In this paper, we propose Belief Behavior Trees (BBTs), an extension to Behavior Trees (BTs) that allows to automatically create a policy that controls a robot in partially observable environments. We extend the semantic of BTs to account for the uncertainty that affects both the conditions and action nodes of the BT. The tree gets synthesized following a planning strategy for BTs proposed recently: from a set of goal conditions we iteratively select a goal and find the action, or in general the subtree, that satisfies it. Such action may have preconditions that do not hold. For those preconditions, we find an action or subtree in the same fashion. We extend this approach by including, in the planner, actions that have the purpose to reduce the uncertainty that affects the value of a condition node in the BT (for example, turning on the lights to have better lighting conditions). We demonstrate that BBTs allows task planning with non-deterministic outcomes for actions. We provide experimental validation of our approach in a real robotic scenario and - for sake of reproducibility - in a simulated one.
We present an integrated Task-Motion Planning (TMP) framework for navigation in large-scale environment. Autonomous robots operating in real world complex scenarios require planning in the discrete (task) space and the continuous (motion) space. In knowledge intensive domains, on the one hand, a robot has to reason at the highest-level, for example the regions to navigate to; on the other hand, the feasibility of the respective navigation tasks have to be checked at the execution level. This presents a need for motion-planning-aware task planners. We discuss a probabilistically complete approach that leverages this task-motion interaction for navigating in indoor domains, returning a plan that is optimal at the task-level. Furthermore, our framework is intended for motion planning under motion and sensing uncertainty, which is formally known as belief space planning. The underlying methodology is validated with a simulated office environment in Gazebo. In addition, we discuss the limitations and provide suggestions for improvements and future work.
We present an integrated Task-Motion Planning (TMP) framework for navigation in large-scale environments. Of late, TMP for manipulation has attracted significant interest resulting in a proliferation of different approaches. In contrast, TMP for navigation has received considerably less attention. Autonomous robots operating in real-world complex scenarios require planning in the discrete (task) space and the continuous (motion) space. In knowledge-intensive domains, on the one hand, a robot has to reason at the highest-level, for example, the objects to procure, the regions to navigate to in order to acquire them; on the other hand, the feasibility of the respective navigation tasks have to be checked at the execution level. This presents a need for motion-planning-aware task planners. In this paper, we discuss a probabilistically complete approach that leverages this task-motion interaction for navigating in large knowledge-intensive domains, returning a plan that is optimal at the task-level. The framework is intended for motion planning under motion and sensing uncertainty, which is formally known as belief space planning. The underlying methodology is validated in simulation, in an office environment and its scalability is tested in the larger Willow Garage world. A reasonable comparison with a work that is closest to our approach is also provided. We also demonstrate the adaptability of our approach by considering a building floor navigation domain. Finally, we also discuss the limitations of our approach and put forward suggestions for improvements and future work.
Autonomous robots operating in large knowledgeintensive domains require planning in the discrete (task) space and the continuous (motion) space. In knowledge-intensive domains, on the one hand, robots have to reason at the highestlevel, for example the regions to navigate to or objects to be picked up and their properties; on the other hand, the feasibility of the respective navigation tasks have to be checked at the controller execution level. Moreover, employing multiple robots offer enhanced performance capabilities over a single robot performing the same task. To this end, we present an integrated multi-robot task-motion planning framework for navigation in knowledge-intensive domains. In particular, we consider a distributed multi-robot setting incorporating mutual observations between the robots. The framework is intended for motion planning under motion and sensing uncertainty, which is formally known as belief space planning. The underlying methodology and its limitations are discussed, providing suggestions for improvements and future work. We validate key aspects of our approach in simulation.
In this paper, we show how a planning algorithm can be used to automatically create and update a Behavior Tree (BT), controlling a robot in a dynamic environment. The planning part of the algorithm is based on the idea of back chaining. Starting from a goal condition we iteratively select actions to achieve that goal, and if those actions have unmet preconditions, they are extended with actions to achieve them in the same way. The fact that BTs are inherently modular and reactive makes the proposed solution blend acting and planning in a way that enables the robot to efficiently react to external disturbances. If an external agent undoes an action the robot reexecutes it without re-planning, and if an external agent helps the robot, it skips the corresponding actions, again without replanning. We illustrate our approach in two different robotics scenarios.
Long-horizon planning in realistic environments requires the ability to reason over sequential tasks in high-dimensional state spaces with complex dynamics. Classical motion planning algorithms, such as rapidly-exploring random trees, are capable of efficiently exploring large state spaces and computing long-horizon, sequential plans. However, these algorithms are generally challenged with complex, stochastic, and high-dimensional state spaces as well as in the presence of narrow passages, which naturally emerge in tasks that interact with the environment. Machine learning offers a promising solution for its ability to learn general policies that can handle complex interactions and high-dimensional observations. However, these policies are generally limited in horizon length. Our approach, Broadly-Exploring, Local-policy Trees (BELT), merges these two approaches to leverage the strengths of both through a task-conditioned, model-based tree search. BELT uses an RRT-inspired tree search to efficiently explore the state space. Locally, the exploration is guided by a task-conditioned, learned policy capable of performing general short-horizon tasks. This task space can be quite general and abstract; its only requirements are to be sampleable and to well-cover the space of useful tasks. This search is aided by a task-conditioned model that temporally extends dynamics propagation to allow long-horizon search and sequential reasoning over tasks. BELT is demonstrated experimentally to be able to plan long-horizon, sequential trajectories with a goal conditioned policy and generate plans that are robust.