A Multitasking Behavioral Control System for the Robotic All Terrain Lunar Exploration Rover (ratler)

The design of a multitasking behavioral control system for the Robotic All Terrain Lunar Exploration Rover (RATLER) is described. The control system design attempts to ameliorate some of the problems noted by some researchers when implementing subsumption or behavioral control systems, particularly with regard to multiple processor systems and real-time operations. The architecture is designed to allow both synchronous and asynchronous operations between various behavior modules by taking advantage of intertask communications channels, and by implementing each behavior module and each interconnection node as a stand-alone task. The potential advantages of this approach over those previously described in the field are discussed. An implementation of the architecture is planned for a prototype Robotic All Terrain Lunar Exploration Rover (RATLER) currently under development, and is briefly described.