ROS-based diagnostic board for detecting and repairing hardware faults in autonomous mobile robots

Model-Based Diagnosis (MBD) system uses model (correct behavior of a robotic system), diagnosis engine, and a planner based repair engine for detecting and repairing faults. In this contribution we present a new hardware called Diagnostic Board used as counterpart to MBD system in order to cope with particularly hardware faults. It is micro-controller based board originally built for monitoring hardware devices connected to its output/input channels. MBD system detects faults in hardware components on the basis of observations coming from diagnostic board. Faulty hardware sensors may be repaired either by stopping or restarting it. Diagnostic board has capability of automatically switching a channel ON or OFF selected by MBD planner system. It can also measure power state, voltage level, and current measurements present on its channels. It can be accessed over Ethernet connection, and has a wireless router to connect with outer-world. Software running in micro-controller lets board act like a server. A TCP/IP based protocol has been developed to make clients connect and interact with diagnostic board either on wired or wireless media under server/client architecture. For evaluation; six different sensors mounted on Jaguar robot platform, are connected with diagnostic board. Two different cases are tested, and empirical results show that diagnostic board successfully brings robotic system back to its normal state in remarkable time.