RAFCON: A graphical tool for engineering complex, robotic tasks

Brunner, Sebastian G.; Steinmetz, Franz; Belder, Rico; Dömel, Andreas

doi:10.1109/iros.2016.7759506

Cited by 59 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…The concepts presented in this paper are kept as general as possible. Our implementation of these concepts builds strongly on the open-source 1 tool RAFCON [2]. RAFCON models tasks as hierarchical finite state machines (HSMs), adds functionality for explicit modeling of data flows, and enables concurrent execution of states (similar to [15] for behavior trees).…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, we model data dependencies as data flows of HSMs. They are formally defined as a quadruple: (source action, source data port, target action, target data port) (see [2]). Additionally, they are associated with a defined data type.…”

Section: B Data Dependenciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This means that for each loop iteration the loop body is copied, all input data of the loop is copied as well and distributed to each iteration (for more information about loop unrolling see IV-B). If the task node has the control flow type routine, then the task node is executed with the default HSM execution algorithm [2]. Therefore, transitions inside routines are allowed (see Section IV-A).…”

Section: Cdtn Execution Algorithmmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Programming robots that require prolonged phases of autonomy to solve tasks is still very challenging. Robot task programming frameworks facilitate this process, for instance by offering graphical design tools [1,2]. As such, these frameworks are important components in the Industrie 4.0 initiative for more flexible production [3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Autonomous Parallelization of Resource-Aware Robotic Task Nodes

Brunner

Dömel

Lehner

et al. 2019

IEEE Robot. Autom. Lett.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: B Data Dependenciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Cdtn Execution Algorithmmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Autonomous Parallelization of Resource-Aware Robotic Task Nodes

Brunner

Dömel

Lehner

et al. 2019

IEEE Robot. Autom. Lett.

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“…We employ our own powerful visual programming tool RAFCON [19,20] for programming complex autonomous tasks. It is based on hierarchical, concurrent state machines.…”

Section: Rafconmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards Autonomous Planetary Exploration

Schuster

Brunner

Bussmann

et al. 2017

J Intell Robot Syst

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Planetary exploration poses many challenges for a robot system: From weight and size constraints to extraterrestrial environment conditions, which constrain the suitable sensors and actuators. As the distance to other planets introduces a significant communication delay, the efficient operation of a robot system requires a high level of autonomy. In this work, we present our Lightweight Rover Unit (LRU), a small and agile rover prototype that we designed for the challenges of planetary exploration. Its locomotion system with individually steered wheels allows for high maneuverability in rough terrain and stereo cameras as its main sensors ensure the applicability to space missions. We implemented software components for self-localization This work was supported by the Helmholtz Association, project alliance ROBEX (contract number HA-304) and partially funded by the DLR Space Administration. Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-017-0680-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. in GPS-denied environments, autonomous exploration and mapping as well as computer vision, planning and control modules for the autonomous localization, pickup and assembly of objects with its manipulator. Additional high-level mission control components facilitate both autonomous behavior and remote monitoring of the system state over a delayed communication link. We successfully demonstrated the autonomous capabilities of our LRU at the SpaceBotCamp challenge, a national robotics contest with focus on autonomous planetary exploration. A robot had to autonomously explore an unknown Moon-like rough terrain, locate and collect two objects and assemble them after transport to a third object -which the LRU did on its first try, in half of the time and fully autonomously. The next milestone for our ongoing LRU development is an upcoming planetary exploration analogue mission to perform scientific experiments at a Moon analogue site located on a volcano.

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