Engineering autonomous systems with reusable skills

A computer-implemented method of engineering an autonomous system with reusable skills related to a manufacturing process, the method comprising:

• displaying a graphical user interface simulating a physical environment, wherein the graphical user interface depicts one or more simulated objects corresponding to one or more physical objects;
• creating one or more graphical markers on the one or more simulated objects based on instructions provided by a user via the graphical user interface wherein at least one of the graphical markers includes (i) a value cache for storing values related to the manufacturing process and labeled with a searchable tag, and (ii) a tag sensor configured to find values stored in value cache objects by searching for the searchable tags;
• determining position and orientation of each graphical marker with respect to the one or more simulated objects;
• creating a skill function comprising a functional description for using a controllable physical device to interact with the one or more physical objects based on the position and orientation of each graphical marker;
• generating executable code operable to perform the skill function;
• and
• actuating the controllable physical device using the executable code;
• generating a plurality of process objects comprising (i) one or more process objects corresponding to the physical objects;
• (ii) one or more process objects corresponding to the controllable physical device;
• (iii) one or more process objects corresponding to the graphical markers;
• and (iv) one or more process objects corresponding to the skill function.