Controller Development with a Rapid Prototyping Shell

Pushkar Piggott and Phillip J. McKerrow 1

The advantages of rule-based techniques are well known, but traditional expert system shells are unsuited to controller development. In this paper we clarify the differences between the controller development task and traditional applications of expert system shells, and describe a shell we have developed for rapid- prototyping development of controllers. To deal with the differences the shell uses fuzzy inference, a single inference step per time step, a special architecture for symbol grounding, and vector variables. We describe the script language, and two example applications. One is to control a simulation of a truck backing up, the other is as part of a sonar-sensing mobile robot control system.

Control, expert system shell, fuzzy inference, robotics.

The Australian Journal of Intelligent Information Processing Systems, Vol. 4, No. 2 Winter 1997.


1. Robotics Research Lab. University of Wollongong NSW 2522