Integrated perception, planning and control for autonomous soil analysis

The authors describe an autonomous system that performs closed loop control of a differential thermal analyzer (DTA) and a gas chromatograph (GC) to identify minerals and organics in soil samples. The system is presented as an instantiation of an integrated agent architecture designed to autonomously control scientific equipment in remote locations. The motivational context and general requirements of the application are described, followed by a description of the DTA-GC problem in terms of specific requirements for integrated perception, analysis, planning and control. The AI techniques applied to each of the specified requirements are considered. The system implementation status is discussed. The original contributions include a general architecture that integrates perception, analysis, planning and control for scientific experiments. The new analysis instrument integrates two previously distinct methods. Issues at the integration level as well as those relating to the individual components are examined