Reactive Planning Simulation in Dynamic Environments with VirtualRobot: Reactive agents and Simulation

Arefeh Esalat Nejad; Marzieh Arbabi

In real-world environments such in air combat missions the agents continuously receive perceptual inputs from the environment that is highly dynamic (unpredictable) and uncertain. The aircraft often have to reorganise themselves and to make decisions under time constraints. Two modes of control are thus necessary: planning and reaction. By planning we mean both building a course of action before execution, and reaction as dynamic replanning which interleaves planning and execution. Furthermore, in air combat simulation the plans adopted by the agents in response to external events are known in advance and are not generated by the agents as in other domains. To be reactive, the agents have to choose dynamically the appropriate plans and to coordinate their actions. We present how we take into account new events thanks to dynamic allocation of tasks by model of tasks and goals by integrating time notions in the selection of action plans and coordinate mechanisms. Operations on plans under time constraints are also examined in order to enable the simultaneous management of several events. The whole system is integrated into VirtualRobot, a graphical software application, which provides a flexible and open platform to work on robotics. Through VirtualRobot we can incorporate important features into the system as simulation of sensing actions or a monitoring mechanism. Additionally, the planning algorithm is able to work in timelimited situations and use numeric variables. All these features make our planningsystem be a nice toolkit to deal with reactive robot planning.

Select Volume / Issues:

• Volume 5,Issue 3,May 2014

Year:

2014

Type of Publication:

Article

Keywords:

VirtualRobot; Reactive; Environments; Simulation; Planning

Journal:

IJECCE

Volume:

5

Number:

3

Pages:

558-561

Month:

May