A FPGA-based behavioral control system for a mobile robot

This paper describes the design and implementation of mobile robot subsumption architecture in which the computing elements of control are based on programmable FPGA devices. This paper also shows the marriage of two concepts, subsumption architecture and FPGA design. To demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach a mobile robot control chip which performs the foraging behavior of an ant has been designed. The design has been implemented using Xilinx 4003. An instance of behavior model, homing behavior, is discussed and formulated into a logical design. From the logical design we use the schematic capture and supporting software to simulate, refine, and synthesize the logic gates. The gate list is finally mapped onto the FPGA devices using Xilinx synthesis tools. Results indicate that the control chip performs the homing behavior correctly.