Formal Specification and Verification of Autonomous Robotic Systems: A Survey <s> Ontologies <s> Knowledge processing is an essential technique for enabling autonomous robots to do the right thing to the right object in the right way. Using knowledge processing the robots can achieve more flexible and general behavior and better performance. While knowledge representation and reasoning has been a well-established research field in Artificial Intelligence for several decades, little work has been done to design and realize knowledge processing mechanisms for the use in the context of robotic control. In this paper, we report on KNOWROB, a knowledge processing system particularly designed for autonomous personal robots. KNOWROB is a first-order knowledge representation based on description logics that provides specific mechanisms and tools for action-centered representation, for the automated acquisition of grounded concepts through observation and experience, for reasoning about and managing uncertainty, and for fast inference — knowledge processing features that are particularly necessary for autonomous robot control. <s> BIB001 </s> Formal Specification and Verification of Autonomous Robotic Systems: A Survey <s> Ontologies <s> This paper proposes a novel approach to achieving fast reconfiguration of modular manufacturing systems, based on an ontology-based reconfiguration agent. The agent uses ontological knowledge of the manufacturing environment for the purpose of reconfiguration without human intervention. The current mass customization era requires increased flexibility and agility in the manufacturing systems to adapt changes in manufacturing requirements and environments. Our configuration agent minimises the overheads of the current reconfiguration process by automating it. It infers facts about the manufacturing environment from the ontological knowledge model and then decides whether the current environment can support the given manufacturing requirements. This paper proposes the agent architecture enabling the integration between the high level planning with the distributed low level control compliant with the upcoming IEC 61499 function blocks standard. <s> BIB002 </s> Formal Specification and Verification of Autonomous Robotic Systems: A Survey <s> Ontologies <s> In this paper, we present the current results of the newly formed IEEE-RAS Working Group, named Ontologies for Robotics and Automation. In particular, we introduce a core ontology that encompasses a set of terms commonly used in Robotics and Automation along with the methodology we have adopted. Our work uses ISO/FDIS 8373 standard developed by the ISO/TC184/SC2 Working Group as a reference. This standard defines, in natural language, some generic terms which are common in Robotics and Automation such as robot, robotic device, etc. Furthermore, we discuss the ontology development process employed along with the problems and decisions taken. <s> BIB003
Ontologies act as a body of knowledge and provide a vocabulary for a given domain  . They formally specify the "key concepts, properties, relationships and axioms of a given domain" and enable reasoning over this knowledge to infer new information BIB003 . For autonomous robotics, ontologies have been used to describe the robot environment, to describe and reason about actions, and for the reuse of domain knowledge BIB003 . Ontologies also have the benefit of being able to capture elements of Human-Robot Interaction. Despite finding ontologies for autonomous robotics systems, our literature search found little evidence of available tool support. The IEEE-RAS working group Ontologies for Robotics and Automation has published an ontology 4 to explicitly and formally specify the shared concepts within robotics and automation  BIB003 . KnowRob is a knowledge processing system for autonomous personal robotic assistants BIB001 where knowledge is represented in description logic using Web Ontology Language (OWL). Their system can be used with ROS and integrates encyclopedic knowledge, an environment model, action-based reasoning, and human observations. In BIB002 , they use ontological knowledge, represented using the OWL, of a manufacturing environment to enable reconfiguration without human intervention. This work uses OWL reasoners to decide how best to reconfigure the system.