Application of discrete events systems for modeling and controlling robotic agents

In this paper we present a framework for modeling behaviors and tasks for heterogeneous robotic agents. For this purpose we have adopted a formalism from the discrete events systems (DES) theory. We distinguish two kinds of scenarios. In the first one, reactive behaviors of mobile agents directly connect observations with actions. The overall objective is to achieve controllability of the system which is composed from modular components operating in parallel. In the second one, observations are implicitly connected with actions and the objective is to design an observer for manipulatory tasks which would guarantee the task´s observability. The use of the DES formalism allows one to describe complex interactions between different components in a systematic fashion and guarantee some control-theoretic properties. We demonstrate our approach by presenting examples of navigation, obstacle avoidance, piercing and picking.