Torocó: A Subsumption Architecture Implementation

Abstract

Writing control software for robots poses specific challenges. Robotic systems are inherently real-time, concurrent, and tightly coupled to the physical environment through sensing and actuation. To ease the development of control software multiple architectures and frameworks have been proposed. Of special historical and theoretical importance is R. Brooks’ Subsumption Architecture, a framework for developing Reactive Systems.Despite its influence, there have been very few actual practical implementations. In this work, we present Torocó, a highly compliant implementation. This framework is portable and lightweight and thus can be deployed on multiple low-cost robotic platforms. This makes it useful as a research and experimental platform to study Subsumption and Reactive robotics architectures in general. Also, the system is easy to use and is useful as an educational tool. All components and a step-by-step guide to install all necessary dependencies are publicly available in gitlab.fing.edu.uy/fbenavid/toroco. Finally, we show how this architecture can be used to solve typical robotic tasks, demonstrating Subsumption’s composability and incremental development.