Sensor Planning for Reactive Robotic Systems

Abstract

Recently, there has been increased emphasis on employing reactive actions in robot task planning. The principle reasons for this change are to increase the robustness of robot actions by making them sensor controlled, and to accomodate dynamic, unpredictable environ- ments. However, in many cases, supporting reactive mechanisms requires choosing task level sensor inputs for the reactive procedure. This paper addresses the issue of planning the task level sensing required to carry out a reactive robot program. A preliminaryframework for planning is presented, and sonsor planning is illustrated for the problem of replacing a mechanically attached plug in a space environment.