(AI) Planning to Reconfigure your Robot?

ABSTRACT. Current and future robotics and autonomous system applications will be used in highly complex environments. In such situations, automatic reconfiguration, due either to changing requirements or equipment failure, is highly desirable. By using a model of autonomy based around the Robot Operating System (ROS), and building on previous work, it is possible to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) Planning to facilitate the automatic reconfiguration. In this way, standard AI Planning machinery may be used with a suitable mathematical model of a given system. This paper reviews the background to this concept and details the initial steps taken towards the combination of AI Planning technology and a physical system, with the aim being to have the planner provide possible validated system reconfigurations which can then be implemented on the hardware.