ROS Commander: Flexible Behavior Creation for Home Robots

We introduce ROS Commander, an open source system that enables expert users to construct, share, and deploy robot behaviors for home robots. A user builds a behavior in the form of a Hierarchical Finite State Machine (HFSM) out of generic, parameterized building blocks, with a real robot in the develop and test loop. Once constructed, users save behaviors in an open format for direct use with robots, or for use as parts of new behaviors. When the system is deployed, a user can show the robot where to apply behaviors relative to fiducial markers (AR Tags), which allows the robot to quickly become operational in a new environment. We show evidence that the underlying state machine representation and current building blocks are capable of spanning a variety of desirable behaviors for home robots, such as opening a refrigerator door with two arms, flipping a light switch, unlocking a door, and handing an object to someone. Our experiments show that sensor-driven behaviors constructed with ROS Commander can be executed in realistic home environments with success rates between 80% and 100%. We conclude by describing a test in the home of a person with quadriplegia, in which the person was able to automate parts of his home using previously-built behaviors.