Model-Based Specification of Control Architectures for Compliant Interaction with the Environment

In recent years the need for manipulation tasks in the industrial as well as in the service robotics domain that require compliant interaction with the environment rose. Since then, an increased number of publications use a model-driven approach to describe these tasks. High-level tasks and sequences of skills are coordinated to achieve a desired motion for e.g., screwing, polishing, or snap mounting [1], [2]. Even though the awareness of the environment, especially in terms of contact situations, is essential for successful task execution, it is too often neglected or considered insufficiently.In this paper, we present a model-based approach, using domain-specific languages (DSL), that enables the explicit modeling of the environment in terms of contact situations. Decoupling the environment model from the skills, fosters exchangeability and allows the adaptation to different environmental situations. This way, an explicit but non-invasive link is established to the skills, enabling the environment model to provide a context to constrain the execution of the skills. Further, we present a synthesis from the modeled contact situations to a real-time component-based control architecture, which executes the skills subject to the active environmental context. A dual arm yoga mat rolling task is used to show the impact of the environment model on the skill execution.