Abstract: The talk focuses on several methods for planning the motion of mobile robots such that a desired task is accomplished. The tasks can range from classical navigation specifications, where a robot should reach a target position while avoiding collisions with obstacles, to rich specifications that include temporal and logic requirements on the attainment of some regions of interest. By assuming a priori available environment map and a robot with simple dynamics, the robot movement capabilities are abstracted into a discrete-event representation for which a solution can be found. Several cell decomposition methods are presented, these playing an important role during this abstraction process. Depending on the proposed problem, we use finite-state models in form of transition systems or Petri nets, and we provide specific algorithmic solutions.

Speaker: M. Kloetzer received B.S. (2002) and M.Sc. (2003) degrees in Computer Science from the Technical University of Iasi, Romania, and Ph.D. (2008) in Systems Engineering from Boston University, Boston, MA, USA. He is currently an assistant professor at the Technical University of Iasi, Romania. His research interests include symbolic motion planning, discrete abstractions and linear temporal logic.