Concurrent planning and execution for a walking robot

As part of the planetary Rover project at Carnegie Mellon University, a system that autonomously navigates a legged robot through complex obstacle courses has been developed. The system is integrated using the task control architecture (TCA), which provides communication and coordination facilities. The walking system, as originally implemented, had a sequential sense-plan-act control cycle. Utilizing TCA features for task sequencing and monitoring, the system was modified to concurrently plan and execute steps. Overall walking speed increased significantly, with only a relatively modest conversion effort