Multi-tasking of competing behaviors on a robot manipulator

Behavior-based robotic manipulators are very flexible since they can perform many different tasks without reprogramming. Unfortunately none of the existing approaches is able to interweave multiple manipulation tasks and execute them reliably at the same time, enabeling e.g. an intuitive human-robot cooperation. To bridge this gap, we suggest a novel reactive behavior-based architecture. For this, we transfer the multitasking concept from modern computer operating systems to the robot and use a resource based approach to coordination and synchronization. With this, we are able to safely run multiple competing behaviors on a robot. Due to the design of the behaviors, new behaviors can easily be added to the system. The behaviors can be interrupted by other behaviors in order to react properly to a dynamic environment. Later, the interrupted behaviors are resumed in such a way that the system keeps a consistent state.