Cross-Platform Programming Through System Identification

In this paper we present the Robot MODIC procedure (robot modelling, identification and characterisation) as a process which lets us identify the robot's motion through a nonlinear polynomial function (NARMAX). This procedure represents an important step towards a science of mobile robots, because the Narmax function can be analysed to understand the underlying phenomena governing the robot's behaviour and it also can be used to subsequently control the movement of the robot. As we'll see through this paper, the Robot-MODIC procedure has another important benefit, it allows very easy and fast cross-platform transfer of robot code. The mathematical description of robot's behaviour (in the form of a polynomial function), can be easily exchanged between different robot platforms, thus essentially "programming" mobile robots, not through the explicit definition of a control mechanism, but through a model derived from the observation of robot's motion. In this way, the RobotMODIC procedure produces an extremely compact code which contributes towards saving in memory space and reduces processing time on the host robot during execution.