The Director: A Composable Behaviour System with Soft Transitions

TL;DR

The paper introduces the Director, a new behaviour framework for robotics that enables smooth transitions, multiple action implementations, and resource control, demonstrated in RoboCup competitions.

Contribution

It presents a novel behaviour system with soft transitions and resource management, improving upon existing frameworks' capabilities and flexibility.

Findings

Successfully used in RoboCup 2023 Bordeaux.

Contains over thirty automated tests.

Demonstrates improved behaviour management.

Abstract

Software frameworks for behaviour are critical in robotics as they enable the correct and efficient execution of functions. While modern behaviour systems have improved their composability, they do not focus on smooth transitions and often lack functionality. In this work, we present the Director, a novel behaviour framework that addresses these problems. It has functionality for soft transitions, multiple implementations of the same action chosen based on conditionals, and strict resource control. The system was successfully used in the 2022/2023 Virtual Season and RoboCup 2023 Bordeaux, in the Humanoid Kid Size League. It is implemented at https://github.com/NUbots/DirectorSoccer, which also contains over thirty automated tests and technical documentation on its implementation in NUClear.