PlanSys2: A Planning System Framework for ROS2

TL;DR

PlanSys2 is a comprehensive ROS2 framework for symbolic task planning in autonomous robots, featuring optimized execution, multi-robot planning, and a growing user community, addressing the limitations of traditional control systems.

Contribution

It introduces a novel ROS2-based planning framework with optimized execution, multi-robot capabilities, and innovative protocols, advancing robotic task planning.

Findings

Supports multi-robot planning scenarios

Uses Behavior Trees for plan execution optimization

Has an active growing community of users and developers

Abstract

Autonomous robots need to plan the tasks they carry out to fulfill their missions. The missions' increasing complexity does not let human designers anticipate all the possible situations, so traditional control systems based on state machines are not enough. This paper contains a description of the ROS2 Planning System (PlanSys2 in short), a framework for symbolic planning that incorporates novel approaches for execution on robots working in demanding environments. PlanSys2 aims to be the reference task planning framework in ROS2, the latest version of the {\em de facto} standard in robotics software development. Among its main features, it can be highlighted the optimized execution, based on Behavior Trees, of plans through a new actions auction protocol and its multi-robot planning capabilities. It already has a small but growing community of users and developers, and this document is a summary of the design and capabilities of this project.