Network human-robot interface at service level

Network human-robot interface is an important research topic. In home application, users access the robotic system directly via voice, gestures or through the network. Users explore a system by using the services provided by this system and to some extend users are enable to participate in a service as partners. A service may be provided by a robot, a group of robots or robots and other network connected systems (distributed sensors, information systems, etc). All these services are done in the network environment, where uncertainty such as the unstable network connection, the availability of the partners in a service, exists. Moreover, these services are controlled by several users, accessing at different time by different methods. Our research aimed at solving this problem to provide a high available level, flexible coordination system. In this paper, a multi-agent framework is proposed. This framework is validated by using our new concept of slave agents, a responsive multi-agent environment, a virtual directory facilitator (VDF), and a task allocation system using contract net protocol. Our system uses a mixed model between distributed and centralized model. It uses a centralized agent management system (AMS) to control the overall system. However, the partners and users may be distributed agents connected to the center through agent communication or centralized at the AMS container using the slave agents to represent the physical agents. The system is able to determine the task allocation for a group of robot working as a team to provide a service. A number of experiments have been conducted successfully in our lab environment using Issac robot, a PDA for user agent and a wireless network system, operated under our multi agent framework control. The experiments show that this framework works well and provides some advantages to existing systems.