Integration of reactive navigation with a flexible parallel hardware architecture

AuRA (autonomous robot architecture), a hybrid, schema-based software architecture encompassing aspects of both deliberative and reactive control is described. A flexible, real-time, message-passing hardware platform for the development of AuRA and other software architectures is also presented. To demonstrate their flexibility and portability, they were integrated within a very short period to be used in a mobile robot competition. The experience confirmed the advantages of onboard computational capability in mobile systems.<
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