Use and advances in the Active Grammar-based Modeling architecture

Abstract

The choice of using a robotic architecture and one of its possible implementations is one of the most crucial design decisions when developing robots. Such decision affects the whole development process, the limitations of the robot, and changing minds can be prohibitively time consuming. This paper presents the redesign and the most relevant implementation issues of the Active Grammar-based Modeling architecture (AGM), as well as the latest developments thereof. AGM is flexible, modular and designed with computation distribution and scalability in mind. In addition to a continuous refactoring of the API library and planner, the most relevant improvements are an enhanced mission specification syntax, support for representations combining symbolic and metric properties, redesigned communication patterns, and extended middleware support. A few use examples are presented to demonstrate successful application of the architecture and why some of its features were needed.