Robot Programming Methods

To learn the robot programming methods.

Lecture contents

Several historic and currently used specialized robot-programming languages will be presented. Then focus will shift to robot programming frameworks, i.e.: libraries of modules, a pattern according to which they have to be assembled and tools for producing new modules. Robot will be treated as an embodied agent and its operation will be described formally in terms of transition functions. Both sequential and concurrent decompositions of those functions will be considered. Competitive and cooperative composition of results and the definition of complex behaviours will be the subject of presentation. The transition from synchronous to event driven systems will be shown. Deliberative vs. behavioural, fuzzy vs. crisp, deterministic vs. indeterministic systems will be described from the point of view of the definition of the transition functions governing their behaviour. Cooperation and coordination in multi-robot systems will be described. The course will also cover implementation issues, especially programming paradigms (procedural, object-oriented, component based). Error handling and debugging issues will also be explained. The presentation of implementation structures (methods of merging specialized languages and programming frameworks and the influence on the compilation/interpretation of the resulting code) will follow. An introduction to formal languages and how to build a simple compiler of a robot language will be shown. MRROC++ robot programming framework will be used for presenting examples of complex systems, e.g. capable of two-handed manipulation with force sensing, visual servoing, voice communication and capability to reason. The course will conclude with the description of software for swarms of autonomous robots and coordinated multi-robot systems requiring utility based task allocation.

Similar Courses

Recommended texts:

• Zieliński C.: Robot Programming Methods. Warsaw University of
  Technology Publishing House, 1995.


• Zieliński C.: Transition-Function Based Approach to Structuring
  Robot Control


• Software. In: Robot Motion and Control: Recent Developments. Ed.
  K. Kozłowski,


• Lecture Notes in Control and Information Sciences, Vol.335,
  Springer Verlag. 2006.pp 265-286

Further readings: will be provided by lecturer

After completing this course the students will be able to:

• Use the typical robot programming language,
• Elaborate his own robot programming framework for a single robot,
• Specify the programming framework for the multi-robot systems.

30% continuous assessment, 70% from end of semester examination.