Automated specification, generation and execution of high level missions involving one or more heterogeneous unmanned aircraft systems is in its infancy. Much previous effort has been focused on the development of air vehicle platforms themselves together with the avionics and sensor subsystems that implement basic navigational skills. In order to increase the degree of autonomy in such systems so they can successfully participate in more complex mission scenarios such as those considered in emergency rescue that also include ongoing interactions with human operators, new architectural components and functionalities will be required to aid not only human operators in mission planning, but also the unmanned aircraft systems themselves in the automatic generation, execution and partial verification of mission plans to achieve mission goals. This article proposes a formal framework and architecture based on the unifying concept of delegation that can be used for the automated specification, generation and execution of high-level collaborative missions involving one or more air vehicles platforms and human operators. We describe an agent-based software architecture, a temporal logic-based mission specification language, a distributed temporal planner and a task specification language that when integrated provide a basis for the generation, instantiation and execution of complex collaborative missions on heterogeneous air vehicle systems. A prototype of the framework is operational in a number of autonomous unmanned aircraft systems developed in our research lab.

/pdf/high-level-mission-specification-and-planning-for-1531qnqjla.pdf

High-Level Mission Specification and Planning for Collaborative Unmanned Aircraft Systems Using Delegation

We discuss stages of autonomy determination for software agents that manage and manipulate knowledge in organizations that house other software agents and human knowledge workers. We suggest recognition of potential autonomies in the belief-desire-intention (BDI) paradigm and actual reasoning about autonomy choice decision theoretically. We show how agents might revise their autonomies in light of one another's autonomy and might also experience new, derived autonomies. We discuss the conditions under which an entire group of agents might have a collective autonomy attitude toward agents outside their group. We believe group attitudes are a novel concept and form a strong basis for developing theories of dynamic organizational structure. We briefly sketch an outline of a case study that motivates reasoning about autonomies.

/pdf/stages-of-autonomy-determination-13ot23lvc9.pdf

Stages of autonomy determination

The leadership of the US Navy has undertaken a sweeping modernisation of the Navy's human resources system. A concentrated effort is aimed specifically at transforming the enlisted personnel assignment process. This process is enormously complicated and uses very complex business rules. To facilitate the transformation of the personnel assignment process, a web-based multi-agent system is being developed at NPRST (Navy Personnel Research, Studies, and Technology) to perform sailor assignment. Two of the many challenges facing this project lie in determining both the scalability and the computational efficiency of the proposed system. After conducting a literature review, several possible system architectures were identified and proposed as alternatives for implementation. This paper examines the competing approaches from among those found in the literature and evaluates them using the Analytic Hierarchy Process. The recommendations resulting from this analysis are to be tested in the future.

Computational efficiencies for multi-agents: a look at a multi-agent system for sailor assignment

We will describe a simulator and simulated teamwork among a number of Personal Satellite Assistants (PSA) onboard the simulated space station patrolling for problem detection and isolation. PSAs reason about autonomies of potential helpers while helpers reason about their autonomies for deciding to help or to break away from prior commitments to help. We describe algorithms for computing PSA autonomies when there are concurrent and conflicting situations. We also offer empirical results about qualities of help a recruiting PSA receives when there are multiple, concurrent problems.

/pdf/computational-adjustable-autonomy-for-nasa-personal-a3gdq0zta5.pdf

Computational adjustable autonomy for NASA Personal Satellite Assistants

From driving, flying, and swimming, to digging for unknown objects in space exploration, autonomous robots take on varied shapes and sizes. In part, autonomous robots are designed to perform tasks that are too dirty, dull, or dangerous for humans. With nontrivial autonomy and volition, they may soon claim their own place in human society. These robots will be our allies as we strive for understanding our natural and man-made environments and build positive synergies around us. Although we may never perfect replication of biological capabilities in robots, we must harness the inevitable emergence of robots that synchronizes with our own capacities to live, learn, and grow. This book is a snapshot of motivations and methodologies for our collective attempts to transform our lives and enable us to cohabit with robots that work with and for us. It reviews and guides the reader to seminal and continual developments that are the foundations for successful paradigms. It attempts to demystify the abilities and limitations of robots. It is a progress report on the continuing work that will fuel future endeavors. Table of Contents: Part I: Preliminaries/Agency, Motion, and Anatomy/Behaviors / Architectures / Affect/Sensors / Manipulators/Part II: Mobility/Potential Fields/Roadmaps / Reactive Navigation / Multi-Robot Mapping: Brick and Mortar Strategy / Part III: State of the Art / Multi-Robotics Phenomena / Human-Robot Interaction / Fuzzy Control / Decision Theory and Game Theory / Part IV: On the Horizon / Applications: Macro and Micro Robots / References / Author Biography / Discussion

Essential Principles for Autonomous Robotics

For a number of years, researchers in AI and robotics have been sharing organisation principles for software development called “architectures” (Arkin, 1998; Hexmoor et al., 1997; Kortenkamp et al., 1998). Most recently, there has been an interest in extending the software architectures originally designed for robotic applications to accommodate autonomous operation beyond robotics (Pell et al., 1998). These architectures attempt to state principles for organising software for intelligent systems that exhibit cognitive functionalities such as natural language understanding, planning and learning, as well as organism-like functionalities to cope in the world such as reflexive and reactive behaviours.

/pdf/autonomy-control-software-41yugaemrz.pdf

Salvatore Desiano

Papers

Autonomy control software