Generic system architecture for dependable interactive systems: A flying robot example

A generic system architecture for dependable interactive systems is proposed. The architecture is an extension of the behavior-based recursive control structure, which has already been applied successfully to robotic applications. The interaction between multiple robots or between a human user and robotic systems takes place on multiple behavioral levels providing fixed interfaces. A complex system is decomposed into levels according to the dynamics of behaviors and bandwidth of the interfaces. Signals from and to multimodal interface devices are processed according to the behavior-related information contents and fused within the behavior levels. The system structure, as an abstraction of multiple cascaded control loops with feedback mechanisms, is robust against disturbances and model uncertainties. The usage of the generic system architecture is demonstrated on the example of a semi-autonomous flying robot.