Context-based design of robotic systems

The need for improving the robustness, as well as the ability to adapt to different operational conditions, is a key requirement for a wider deployment of robots in many application domains. In this paper, we present an approach to the design of robotic systems, that is based on the explicit representation of knowledge about context. The goal of the approach is to improve the system's performance, by dynamically tailoring the functionalities of the robot to the specific features of the situation at hand. While the idea of using contextual knowledge is not new, the proposed approach generalizes previous work, and its advantages are discussed through a case study including several experiments. In particular, we identify many attempts to use contextual knowledge in several basic functionalities of a mobile robot such as: behavior, navigation, exploration, localization, mapping and perception. We then show how re-designing our mobile platform with a common representation of contextual knowledge, leads to interesting improvements in many of the above mentioned components, thus achieving greater flexibility and robustness in the face of different situations. Moreover, a clear separation of contextual knowledge leads to a design methodology, which supports the design of small specialized system components instead of complex self-contained subsystems. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.