Page 77 - Introduction to AI Robotics

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b.
a. 2 The Hierarchical Paradigm

c.

Figure 2.8 Three of the diverse mobile robots that have used RCS: a.) a commercial
floor cleaning robot, b.) a mining robot, and c.) a submersible or underwater robot.
(Photographs courtesy of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.)

to decompose a robot program into intuitive modules. The NHC decomposi-
tion of mission planner, navigator, and pilot was focused strictly on naviga-
tion, while RCS appears broader. Both have been used recently for successful
vehicle guidance, with RCS being used to control mining equipment, sub-
marines, and cars. So both have reasonable niche targetability. The ease of
portability to other domains is unclear. The architectures are expressed at a
very broad level, akin to “a house should have bedrooms, bathrooms, and a
kitchen.” Architectures which are more specific, “there should be one bath-
room for every two bedrooms,” and which have associated techniques sim-
plify portability. It is hard to see how the code written for a mining machine