An architecture for reflexive autonomous vehicle control

We describe a software architecture to support the planning and control requirements of an autonomous land vehicle. This architecture is designed specifically to handle diverse terrain with maximal speed, efficacy and versatility through the use of a library of reflexive strategies specialized to particular needs. A hierarchy of control is built in which lower level modules perform tasks requiring greatest immediacy while higher level modules perform tasks involving greater assimilation of sensor data. With all levels of the hierarchy operating in parallel, higher level modules perform selective activation and deactivation of lower level responses with limited interference from demands for immediacy, allowing the system to exploit the advantages of both immediate and assimilated data. The reflexive component of this system has been demonstrated both in a detailed real-time simulation and on a small indoor robotic vehicle.