FlexBE Behavior Engine

FlexBE is a high-level behavior engine coordinating the capabilities of a robot in order to solve complex tasks. Behaviors are modeled as hierarchical state machines where states correspond to active actions and transitions describe the reaction to outcomes. Main advantage over similar approaches is the good operator integration and extensive user interface. Besides executing behaviors in full autonomy, the operator can restrict execution of certain transitions or trigger them manually. Furthermore, it is even supported to modify the whole structure of a behavior during its execution without restarting it. The user interface features a runtime control interface as well as a graphical editor for state machines.

Please refer to the FlexBE Homepage (flexbe.github.io) for further information, tutorials, application examples, and much more.

Installation

Execute the following commands to install FlexBE:

roscd && cd ../src
git clone https://github.com/team-vigir/flexbe_behavior_engine.git

Furthermore, create your own repository for behavior development (contains examples):

rosrun flexbe_widget create_repo [your_project_name]

Finally, install the user interface (Google Chrome App) by following these steps.

Usage

Default launch file for running the onboard engine:

roslaunch flexbe_onboard behavior_onboard.launch

Default launch file for running the operator control station (OCS):

roslaunch flexbe_widget behavior_ocs.launch

You can also create a program shortcut for the FlexBE Chrome App. When just developing behaviors and not executing them, it is not necessary to have ROS running.

Next Steps

Do some of the tutorials.
Visit the FlexBE GitHub Organization for additional available states.

Publications

Please use the following publication for reference when using FlexBE:

Philipp Schillinger, Stefan Kohlbrecher, and Oskar von Stryk, "Human-Robot Collaborative High-Level Control with Application to Rescue Robotics", IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Stockholm, Sweden, May 2016.

@INPROCEEDINGS{2016:ICRA_Schillinger-etal,
    author = {Philipp Schillinger and Stefan Kohlbrecher and Oskar von Stryk},
    title = {Human-Robot Collaborative High-Level Control with Application to Rescue Robotics},
    year = {2016},
    pages = {2796-2802},
    booktitle = {Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)},
}

Further Publications

Stefan Kohlbrecher et al. "A Comprehensive Software Framework for Complex Locomotion and Manipulation Tasks Applicable to Different Types of Humanoid Robots." Frontiers in Robotics and AI 3 (2016): 31.

Spyros Maniatopoulos, Philipp Schillinger, Vitchyr Pong, David C. Conner, and Hadas Kress-Gazit, "Reactive High-level Behavior Synthesis for an Atlas Humanoid Robot", IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Stockholm, Sweden, May 2016.

Maintainer

Philipp Schillinger (@pschillinger, [email protected], Contact)

awesomebytes / flexbe_behavior_engine Goto Github PK