An experiment with reactive data-flow tasking in active robot~vision

Eric Rutten (1) , Eric Marchand (2) , François Chaumette (2)

1 EP-ATR - Environnement de programmation d'applications temps réel
2 VISTA - Vision spatio-temporelle et active

Active vision-based robot design involves a variety of techniques and formalisms, from kinematics to control theory, signal processing, and computer science. The programming of such systems therefore requires environments with many different functionalities, in a very integrated fashion to ensure consistency of the different parts. In significant applications, the correct specification of the global controller is not simple to achieve, as it mixes different levels of behavior, and must respect properties. In this paper we advocate the use of a strongly integrated environment that is able to deal with the design of such systems, from the specification of both continuous and discrete parts down to the verification of dynamic behavior. The synchronous language SIGNAL is used here as a candidate integrated environment for the design of active vision systems. Our experiments show that SIGNAL, while not being an environment devoted to robotics (but more generally dedicated to control theory and signal processing), presents functionalities and a degree of integration that are relevant to the safe design of an active vision-based robotics system.

Mots clés: formal specification language; reactive systems; data flow; task preemption; robotics; active vision

Domaines: Robotique [cs.RO]

Eric Rutten, Eric Marchand, François Chaumette. An experiment with reactive data-flow tasking in active robot~vision. Software: Practice and Experience, 1997, 27 (5), pp.599-621. ⟨10.1177/027836499801700407⟩. ⟨hal-00549272⟩