GOALS

• design and develop heterogeneous teams of robots

• link these robots to one another, humans, and other information sources using the RETSINA multiagent architecture

• develop effective strategies to support cooperation among the team

MEANS

Constructing and housing a replica of NIST’s Orange arena

Constructing interactive simulations of the NIST areas

In the first five months we have:

• Conducted extensive data collection at the NIST USAR facility

• Constructed an initial simulation of the Orange Arena

• Begun experimentation for constructing a stair/rubble climbing robot

Near Future:

Focus on teleoperation

Medium Future:

Focus on cooperation

Data Collection Team at NIST

Robots Agents and People: Teams for USARMary Berna, Illah Nourbakhsh, & Katia Sycara Carnegie Mellon University

Michael Lewis & Jijun Wang University of Pittsburgh

User 1 User 2 User u

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Interface Agent 1Interface Agent 1 Interface Agent 2Interface Agent 2 Interface Agent iInterface Agent i

Task Agent 1Task Agent 1 Task Agent 2Task Agent 2 Task Agent tTask Agent t

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Info Agent nInfo Agent n

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Goal and TaskSpecifications Results

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Info & ServiceRequests

Information IntegrationConflict Resolution Replies

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Info Agent 1Info Agent 1

Queries

Answers

RAP Project RETSINA- multiagent Systems architecture

Retsina agents come with built-in planning, & communications capability and have been designed to support cooperation including dynamic discovery and loss of communications

Individual RETSINA agent architecture

Typical RETSINA MAS architecture

Retsina agents will provide outer loop control and serve to link USAR robots with one another, human controllers, and external information sources.

USAR Simulation

We are developing simulations of all three NIST arenas using the Unreal game engine and the GameBots modification to insert simulated robots

NIST photograph of Orange Arena

Simulated Orange arena (without rubble)

Robot level view real arena

Robot level view simulation

Novel USAR Robots

We are developing a cadre of differentially capable robots we hope to control through a matchmaking, collaboration process.

Pictured below are views of Corky, an experimental stairs/rubble climber

1               Acknowledgements

This project is supported by NSF grant NSF-ITR-0205526.. Alexander Gutierrez, Terence Keegan, Kevin Oishi, Binoy Shah, Steven Shamlian, Mark Yong, and Josh Young assisted in data collection.