Reliable reaction [mobile robot navigation]

In this paper we are concerned with the reliability, i.e., probability of success, of reactive system components (behaviors) in autonomous systems such as mobile robots. A method is presented for designing reliable behaviors by a suitable integration of a set of less reliable ones, which can be based on different and complementary algorithms, sensors, etc. The presented approach is based on the exploitation of the redundancy introduced by the functionally equivalent behaviors, that are committed to pursuing a common goal. Each behavior votes for a set of possible actions and a voter selects the action that best fulfils the goal of the behavior team. We show and experimentally validate that, with careful design, the behavior team will have an improved reliability compared to any of the behaviors constituting it. Real-world experiments are presented, where a particular team of obstacle avoidance behaviors for mobile robot navigation is studied