Context-driven agents in computer supported cooperative works

This thesis describes a research project that investigates the level of contextualization needed to successfully build context-driven agents that can manage a cooperative project. Many times in industry, collaborators in a large project may be located vast distances from each other. It is for this reason that management of such projects can often be difficult. The purpose of this research is to design an agent that can take on the role of a project manager (PM) to assist the human project manager. Specifically, this thesis looks to give such project management agents full situational awareness. It is hypothesized that only with situational awareness can an agent successfully act in the role of a project manager. This thesis describes the investigation into the use of Context-Based Reasoning and Contextual Graphs to create an agent with such situational awareness. This thesis shows that with enough situational awareness, an agent will have the ability to successfully take on the role of a project manager. In particular, this thesis looks at a PM-agent that can manage a simulated project to design and construct a small sounding rocket

Fireground location understanding by semantic linking of visual objects and building information models

This paper presents an outline for improved localization and situational awareness in fire emergency situations based on semantic technology and computer vision techniques. The novelty of our methodology lies in the semantic linking of video object recognition results from visual and thermal cameras with Building Information Models (BIM). The current limitations and possibilities of certain building information streams in the context of fire safety or fire incident management are addressed in this paper. Furthermore, our data management tools match higher-level semantic metadata descriptors of BIM and deep-learning based visual object recognition and classification networks. Based on these matches, estimations can be generated of camera, objects and event positions in the BIM model, transforming it from a static source of information into a rich, dynamic data provider. Previous work has already investigated the possibilities to link BIM and low-cost point sensors for fireground understanding, but these approaches did not take into account the benefits of video analysis and recent developments in semantics and feature learning research. Finally, the strengths of the proposed approach compared to the state-of-the-art is its (semi -)automatic workflow, generic and modular setup and multi-modal strategy, which allows to automatically create situational awareness, to improve localization and to facilitate the overall fire understanding

Situational awareness and adherence to the principle of distinction as a necessary condition for lawful autonomy

As a contribution to the CCW’s third informal meeting of experts on lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS), this briefing paper focuses on the implications of the requirement of situational awareness for autonomous action – whether by humans, machines or complex human-machine systems. For the purposes of this paper, ‘autonomy’ refers to self-directed action, and more specifically the action-according-to-rule that comprises military discipline. Unlike the algorithmic sense of a rule as that term is used in Artificial Intelligence (AI), military rules always require interpretation in relation to a specific situation, or situational awareness. Focusing on the principle of distinction, I argue that International Humanitarian Law (IHL) presupposes capacities of situational awareness that it does not, and cannot, fully specify. At the same time, autonomy or ‘self-direction’ in the case of machines requires the adequate specification (by human designers) of the conditions under which associated actions should be taken. This requirement for unambiguous specification of condition/action rules marks a crucial difference between autonomy as a legally accountable human capacity, and machine autonomy. The requirement for situational awareness in the context of combat, as a prerequisite for action that adheres to IHL, raises serious doubts regarding the feasibility of lawful autonomy in weapon systems