Task harmonisation for a single-task robot controller

Abstract

The technical capabilities of robots and their increased versatility require a single robot to be able to perform a wide array of complex tasks. What more, when performing a task, it may be asked to carry out another one. Switching between different tasks is a known problem in engineering, however, robots, compared to programs operating in a virtual space, are unique as they must follow laws of physics. In this work, we introduce a method for harmonising service robot tasks being managed by finite state machines. The method allows for the handling of safe suspend and resume procedures for a complex task. Additionally, we consider a case when the robot can not switch the current task to another at any time. The method was implemented and verified by conducting multiple interruptions of one task by another one. The tasks during the verification were being performed in simulation by a TIAGo robot.