Autonomous mobile robot teams

This paper describes autonomous mobile robot teams performing tasks in unstructured environments. The behavior and the intelligence of the group is distributed, and the system does not include a central command base or leader. The novel concept of the Tropism-Based Cognitive Architecture is introduced, which is used by the robots in order to produce behavior transforming their sensory information to proper action. The results of a number of simulation experiments are presented. These experiments include worlds where the robot teams must locate, decompose, and gather objects, and defend themselves against hostile predators, while navigating around stationary and mobile obstacles

Online Deliberation and Personal Identity

Both offline and online deliberation require certain structural features and dispositions from all participants involved in order to qualify as a rational discourse of importance—in regard to the legitimacy of the political decision-making process. Some of them are: 1) inclusiveness—all those affected both directly or indirectly ought to be included in deliberation; 2) reflexivity—participants must be willing to change their opinion after encountering a better argument; 3) ideal role taking—participants must be able to understand the perspective of others; 4) sincerity—there ought to be an awareness regarding the dangers of self-deception or manipulation. Unlike a typical offline setting, an online setting for deliberation is able to offer anonymity to participants, which is reflecting interestingly on the aforementioned features of deliberation. An opportunity to stay anonymous is both praised and criticized due to its ambivalent influence on people’s behavior—making them simultaneously more and less attuned to the ideal of deliberation. For example, anonymity makes people more willing to participate, but reportedly lowers the quality of deliberation itself by reducing the respectfulness of participants. It seems that the decision about disclosure of one’s personal identity has consequences, such as favoring some features of deliberation at the expense of others. I will assess the potential of digital anonymity as a tool for neutralizing power dynamics that are incompatible with rational discourse

Conference on Intelligent Robotics in Field, Factory, Service, and Space (CIRFFSS 1994), volume 1

The AIAA/NASA Conference on Intelligent Robotics in Field, Factory, Service, and Space (CIRFFSS '94) was originally proposed because of the strong belief that America's problems of global economic competitiveness and job creation and preservation can partly be solved by the use of intelligent robotics, which are also required for human space exploration missions. Individual sessions addressed nuclear industry, agile manufacturing, security/building monitoring, on-orbit applications, vision and sensing technologies, situated control and low-level control, robotic systems architecture, environmental restoration and waste management, robotic remanufacturing, and healthcare applications

Sociorobotics

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