HBBA

From IntRoLab

HBBA - Hybrid Behavior-Based Architecture

Hbba struct.png

Description

Our new Hybrid Behavior-Based Architecture (HBBA) combines our latest research in autonomous mobile robots control architectures and is the logical evolution of our Motivated Behavioral Architecture (MBA). It currently powers the mind of our humanoid robot, Johnny 0.

Our decisional structure remains heavily distributed. Motivation modules provides the system with high-level desires. The Intention Workspace acts as a blackboard - a sharing space for motivation modules to post their desires. The Intention Translator takes these desires and translate them into a tangible intention for the controlled robot. This means our motivation modules are loosely coupled with the actual robot, making them portable between different instances of our architecture. Selective attention mechanisms implemented within the translator try to make the most of our platforms' limited resources by selecting competing perceptual and behavioral strategies in line with the current situation. The Egosphere surveys perceptual events and builds a more manageable abstraction of every sensorial inputs provided by our hardware. The Emotional Subsystem regulates desires' intensities according to the simulated mood of the robot, which varies in relation to the current intention accomplishment.

Its current implementation is a set of reusable ROS packages, mostly written in C++.

Current Uses

Autonomous Robot

Publications

  1. Ferland, F., Létourneau, D., Aumont, A., Frémy, J, Legault, M.-A., Lauria, M., Michaud, F. (2012), "Natural interaction design of a humanoid robot," Journal of Human-Robot Interaction, 1 (2), 118-134, [1].
  2. Michaud, F., Ferland, F., Létourneau, D., Legault, M.-A., Lauria, M. (2010), “Toward autonomous, compliant, omnidirectional humanoid robots for natural interaction in real life settings,” Paladyn Behavioral Robotic Journal, 1(1): 57-65. ([2])
  3. Michaud, F., Côté, C., Létourneau, D., Brosseau, Y., Valin, J.-M., Beaudry, É., Raïevsky, C., Ponchon, Moisan, P., Lepage, P., Morin, Y., Gagnon, F., Giguère, P., Roux, M.-A., Caron, S., Frenette, P., Kabanza, F. (2007), “Spartacus attending the 2005 AAAI Conference,” to be published in Autonomous Robots, Special Issue on the AAAI Mobile Robot Competitions and Exhibition. (pdf)