Application of the Sequence Planner Control Framework to an Intelligent Automation System with a Focus on Error Handling

Abstract

Future automation systems are likely to include devices with a varying degree of autonomy, as well as advanced algorithms for perception and control. Human operators will be expected to work side by side with both collaborative robots performing assembly tasks and roaming robots that handle material transport. To maintain the flexibility provided by human operators when introducing such robots, these autonomous robots need to be intelligently coordinated, i.e., they need to be supported by an intelligent automation system. One challenge in developing intelligent automation systems is handling the large amount of possible error situations that can arise due to the volatile and sometimes unpredictable nature of the environment. Sequence Planner is a control framework that supports the development of intelligent automation systems. This paper describes Sequence Planner and tests its ability to handle errors that arise during execution of an intelligent automation system. An automation system, developed using Sequence Planner, is subjected to a number of scenarios where errors occur. The error scenarios and experimental results are presented along with a discussion of the experience gained in trying to achieve robust intelligent automation.