Programming parallel distributed control for complex systems

The author considers the design of control programs for systems with many degrees of freedom and multiple goals. These systems have several features requiring nontraditional control techniques. The author proposes a framework for the control of such systems. In this framework, it is possible to create abstract domains of interest and relate them to sensed and actuated quantities. Motions are programmed by specifying inequality or equality constraints in these domains, possibly changing over time, which have to be satisfied in order to achieve the task. A trajectory satisfying the constraints is picked at run time. The framework has a number of benefits, including the ability to deal with redundancy and the partial specification of motion; the ability to divide the control task into independent, concurrent modules which can be separately developed and debugged; the possibility of parallel execution; ease of modification of existing programs; and the ability to handle multiple sensors and actuators in a uniform fashion. An experimental version of this framework has been implemented with encouraging results