IMPORTANT NOTE: The postscript files were created for printing on US Letter sized paper. If you have problems printing this outside of the US, please try downloading from my DAMN web page at the University of Sydney instead.
Technical Report Coordinator
The Robotics Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
robotics+@cmu.edu
The Distributed Architecture for Mobile Navigation (DAMN) is a planning and control architecture in which a collection of independently operating modules collectively determine a robot's actions. DAMN consists of a group of distributed behaviors communicating with a centralized arbiter, either by sending votes in favor of actions that satisfy its objectives, or by indicating the utility of various possible world states. The arbiter is then responsible for combining the behaviors' votes and generating actions which reflects their objectives and priorities. The use of distributed shared control allows multiple levels of planning to be used in decision-making without the need for an hierarchical structure, and the distributed, asynchronous nature of the architecture allows multiple goals and constraints to be fulfilled simultaneously. Thus, DAMN provides coherent, rational, goal-directed behavior while preserving real-time responsiveness to its immediate physical environment. DAMN also provides a framework for developing and integrating independent decision-making modules communicating with such arbiters, thus facilitating their development and leading to evolutionary creation of robust systems of incrementally greater capabilities.
DAMN has been used to combine various systems of differing capabilities on several mobile robots, and has also been used for active sensor control. Various subsystems developed at Carnegie Mellon University and elsewhere have been integrated within this architecture, creating systems that perform road following, cross-country navigation, map-based route following, and teleoperation while avoiding obstacles and meeting mission objectives.
Thanks,
Julio
jkr+@cmu.edu