Skill-based design of dependable robotic architectures

Software architectures for autonomous systems are generally structured with 3 layers: a decisional layer managing autonomous reasoning, a functional layer managing reactive tasks and processing, and an executive layer bridging the gap between both. The executive layer plays a central role, as it links high-level tasks with low-level processing, and is generally responsible for the robustness or the fault-tolerance of the overall system. In this paper, we propose a development process for such an executive layer that emphasizes on the dependability of this layer. To do so, we structure the executive layer using skills, that are formally defined using a specific language, and we then provide some tools to verify these models, generate some code, and a methodology to assess the fault-tolerance of the resulting architecture.