Formalisms for Robotic Mission Specification and Execution: A Comparative Analysis

2026-03-16

AI Summary

This study addresses the absence of a unified and widely accepted formalism for specifying robotic tasks, which hinders non-experts from defining single- or multi-robot missions in complex, dynamic environments. For the first time, it systematically compares four prominent task specification paradigms—Behavior Trees, Finite State Machines, Hierarchical Task Networks (HTN), and Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN)—from the perspective of task-level description. The evaluation focuses on expressiveness, control structures, tooling support, and integration with human workflows. Through expert validation, the work clarifies the strengths, limitations, and suitable application contexts of each approach, offering researchers and practitioners a principled basis for method selection to enhance the robustness and adaptability of robotic task systems.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Multi-Robot Systems
• Humans and AI: Human-Aware Planning and Behavior Prediction
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Simulating Human Behavior

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Semantics and Knowledge: Data modeling to support human-machine intelligence, including LLMs agents, intelligent system behavior, explanations, and user-friendly interactions
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Research challenges in human and human-AI computation

Abstract

Robots are increasingly deployed across diverse domains and designed for multi-purpose operation. As robotic systems grow in complexity and operate in dynamic environments, the need for structured, expressive, and scalable mission-specification approaches becomes critical, with mission specifications often defined in the field by domain experts rather than robotics specialists. However, there is no standard or widely accepted formalism for specifying missions in single- or multi-robot systems. A variety of formalisms, such as Behavior Trees, State Machines, Hierarchical Task Networks, and Business Process Model and Notation, have been adopted in robotics to varying degrees, each providing different levels of abstraction, expressiveness, and support for integration with human workflows and external devices. This paper presents a systematic analysis of these four formalisms with respect to their suitability for robot mission specification. Our study focuses on mission-level descriptions rather than robot software development. We analyze their underlying control structures and mission concepts, evaluate their expressiveness and limitations in modeling real-world missions, and assess the extent of available tool support. By comparing the formalisms and validating our findings with experts, we provide insights into their applicability, strengths, and shortcomings in robotic system modeling. The results aim to support practitioners and researchers in selecting appropriate modeling approaches for designing robust and adaptable robot and multi-robot missions.

Problem

• mission specification
• robotic systems
• formalisms
• multi-robot systems
• task modeling

Innovation

• Behavior Trees
• State Machines
• Hierarchical Task Networks
• Business Process Model and Notation
• Mission Specification