Description

RULE is an experimental platform for automatic deployment of robotic cars in an urban-like environment. The cars are Khepera III miniature robots with processing, sensing, and communication capabilities. The "city" has streets, intersections, traffic lights, and parking spots, and can be easily reconfigured. Four overhead cameras are used to produce a topological map of the environment, which can be sent to the cars. A desktop computer controls the environment events, such as the timing and sequence of the traffic lights, and the four overhead cameras. The goal is to be able to simultaneusly deploy multiple cars from human-like, rich specifications about visiting regions of interest in the city such as "Visit Road 1 and then Road 2, in this order, infinitely often. If Intersection 1 is ever reached, then Road 4 should never be entered. Park in the next available parking slot", etc.