The role of knowledge in the architecture of a robust robot control

We would like robots to recognize and handle situations that do not conform with normal operating conditions. We want to be able to do this without having to consider explicitly errors caused by missing or defective parts, or by malfunctioning. To this end we present the detailed design of a system in which the controller of the robot takes advantage of large knowledge bases to ensure proper execution of the robot task. Real time considerations played a large role in our design.