A Synergetic High-level/Reactive Planning Framework with Application to Human-Assisted Navigation

In this work we present a novel framework for the systematic integration of high-level/mission schedulers, middle- level/cognitive-enabled online-planners and low-level/reactive trajectory modifiers. The approach does not rely on a particular parametrization of the trajectory and assumes a basic environ- ment representation. As an application, the online capabilities of the method can be used to let a mobile robot cooperate with a human taking the role of the middle-level planner. In that case we also describe a rigorous way to bilaterally couple the human and the reactive planner in order to provide an immersive hap- tic feeling of the planner state. Hardware/Human in-the-loop simulations, with a quadrotor UAV used as robotic platform and a real haptic instrument, are provided as validating showcase of the presented theoretical framework.