Mission-based online generation of probabilistic monitoring models for mobile robot navigation using Petri nets

This paper presents a generic hybrid monitoring approach, which allows the detection of inconsistencies in the navigation of autonomous mobile robots using online-generated models. A mission on the context of the navigation corresponds to an autonomous navigation from a start to an end mission point. The operator defines this mission by selecting a final goal point. Based on this selection the monitoring models for the current mission must be generated online. The originalities of this work are (i) the association of classic state estimation based on a particle filter with a special class of Petri net in order to deliver an estimation of the next robot state (position) as well as the environment state (graph nodes) and to use both pieces of information to distinguish between external noise influences, internal component faults and global behaviour inconsistency (ii) the integration of the geometrical and the logical environment representation into the monitor model (iii) the online generation of the corresponding monitoring model for the present mission trajectory while the system is running. The model takes simultaneously into account the uncertainty of the robot and of the environment through a unified modelling of both. To show the feasibility of the approach we apply it to an intelligent wheelchair (IWC) as a special type of autonomous mobile robot.

► Combination of particle filters and Petri nets to monitor robot navigation.
► Hybrid monitoring based on continuous residual and Petri net marking reachability.
► Hybrid environment modelling, geometrical and topological in a unified model.
► On-line generation of the monitoring models corresponding to the current mission.