Preview coordination: An enhanced execution model for online scheduling of mobile manipulation tasks

Task specification models define the activities to be executed by a robot in order to achieve its goal. Classical examples are the sequences involved in assembly or pick and place tasks. This work introduces the preview coordination execution model, an extension to the traditional way in which the execution of such task specifications is coordinated at runtime. Instead of taking activities one-by-one as defined in the task specification model, preview coordination optimizes the task scheduling based on knowledge about the likelihood that not just the activities required by the current state can be executed, but that also one or more of those related to future states of the system can be activated. An experiment with mobile manipulation tasks illustrates the benefits of preview coordination.