Representation and execution support for reliable robot applications

Robot applications, represented as plans, are used to outline a viewpoint that robustness needs to be emphasized in two areas: in the plan representation and in the underlying system software. Robot applications are inherently distributed, since the hardware usually comprises a set of independent actuators and sensors, with the robot programs acting as links between them. A special model of distributed computation, the RS (Robot Schemas) model, has been designed to handle the issues of robot plan representation, and an overview of the model is presented. An initial implementation of the model with minimal execution support demonstrated that the domain-dependent aspect of robustness on its own was not sufficient for robust behavior. Consequently, the OS has been augmented with real-time scheduling, and monitoring facilities