Path Planning Through Time and Space in Dynamic Domains

Realistic robot problems involve navigating the robot through time as well as space. The obstacles that a robot must avoid and the pathways on which it travels are subject to changes throughout time. These changes can occur in a predictable or unpredictable fashion. This paper presents an integrated route planning and spatial representation system that allows paths to be calculated in dynamic domains. The path planner finds the "best route" through a given n-dimensional space. The "best route" is defined as the path through space-time with the best score as determined by a set of user-defined evaluatio

Integrating deliberative planning in a robot architecture

The role of planning and reactive control in an architecture for autonomous agents is discussed. The postulated architecture seperates the general robot intelligence problem into three interacting pieces: (1) robot reactive skills, i.e., grasping, object tracking, etc.; (2) a sequencing capability to differentially ativate the reactive skills; and (3) a delibrative planning capability to reason in depth about goals, preconditions, resources, and timing constraints. Within the sequencing module, caching techniques are used for handling routine activities. The planning system then builds on these cached solutions to routine tasks to build larger grain sized primitives. This eliminates large numbers of essentially linear planning problems. The architecture will be used in the future to incorporate in robots cognitive capabilites normally associated with intelligent behavior

A streamlined software environment for situated skills

This paper documents a powerful set of software tools used for developing situated skills. These situated skills form the reactive level of a three-tiered intelligent agent architecture. The architecture is designed to allow these skills to be manipulated by a task level engine which is monitoring the current situation and selecting skills necessary for the current task. The idea is to coordinate the dynamic activations and deactivations of these situated skills in order to configure the reactive layer for the task at hand. The heart of the skills environment is a data flow mechanism which pipelines the currently active skills for execution. A front end graphical interface serves as a debugging facility during skill development and testing. We are able to integrate skills developed in different languages into the skills environment. The power of the skills environment lies in the amount of time it saves for the programmer to develop code for the reactive layer of a robot

Spatial and Temporal Path Planning

For robots to move out of the lab and into the real-world, they must be able to plan routes not only through space but through time as well. The introduction of a time factor to the planning process implies that robots must reason about other processes and agents that move through space independently of the robot's actions. This thesis presents an integrated route planner and spatial representation system for planning real-time paths through dynamic domains called Robonav. Robonav will find the safest, most efficient route through time and space as described by an evaluation function. Due to the design of the spatial representation and the mechanics of the algorithm, Robonav has an isomorphic mapping onto a machine with a highly parallel SIMD architecture. When Robonav is operated in a predictable domain; paths are found in O(p) time (where p is the length of a path). In unpredictable domains, where Robonav is operated in incremental mode, paths are found and executed in $O(p^2)$ time

Responsible Aquaculture in 2050: Valuing Local Conditions and Human Innovations Will Be Key to Success

As aquaculture production expands, we must avoid mistakes made during increasing intensification of agriculture. Understanding environmental impacts and measures to mitigate them is important for designing responsible aquaculture production systems. There are four realistic goals that can make future aquaculture operations more sustainable and productive: (I) improvement of management practices to create more efficient and diverse systems at every production level; (2) emphasis on local decisionmaking, human capacity development, and collective action to generate productive aquaculture systems that fit into societal constraints and demands; (3) development of risk management efforts for all systems that reduce disease problems, eliminate antibiotic and drug abuse, and prevent exotic organism introduction into local waters; and (4) creation of systems to better identify more sustainably grown aquaculture products in the market and promote them to individual consumers. By 2050, seafood will be predominantly sourced through aquaculture, including not only finfish and invertebrates but also seaweeds.Keywords: Human capacity development, Best management practices, Responsible aquaculture, Integrated multitrophic aquaculture, Recirculating aquaculture system

Experiences with an Architecture for Intelligent, Reactive Agents

This paper describes an implementation of the 3 T robot architecture which has been under development for the last eight years. The architecture uses three levels of abstraction and description languages which are compatible between levels. The makeup of the architecture helps to coordinate planful activities with real-time behaviors for dealing with dynamic environments. In recent years, other architectures have been created with similar attributes but two features distinguish the 3 T architecture: 1) a variety of useful software tools have been created to help implement this architecture on multiple real robots; and 2) this architecture, or parts of it, have been implemented on a variety of very different robot systems using different processors, operating systems, effectors and sensor suites. 1 Introduction Since the late eighties we have been investigating ways to combine deliberation and reactivity in control architectures for programming robots to carry out tasks robustly in f..

Experiences with an Architecture for Intelligent, Reactive Agents

This paper describes an implementation of the 3T robot architecture which has been under development for the last eightyears. The architecture uses three levels of abstraction and description languages whichare compatible between levels. The makeup of the architecture helps to coordinate planful activities with real-time behaviors for dealing with dynamic environments. In recent years, other architectures have been created with similar attributes but two features distinguish the 3T architecture: 1) a variety of useful software tools have been created to help implement this architecture on multiple real robots;, and 2) this architecture, or parts of it, have been implemented on a varietyofvery different robot systems using different processors, operating systems, effectors and sensor suites

Building information systems as universalised locals

We report on our experiences in a participatory design project to develop ICTs in a hospital ward working with deliberate self-harm patients. This project involves the creation and constant re-creation of socio-technical ensembles that satisfy the various, changing and often contradictory and conflicting needs in this context. Such systems are shaped in locally meaningful ways but nevertheless reach beyond their immediate context to gain wider importance and to be integrated with the larger environment. currently working on a participatory design project developing IT systems for psychiatrists working in a toxicology ward of a large general hospital. His research focuses on the local co-production of technologies which he currently explores in a production management context. His research interests lie in the field of human factors and interactive systems design, particularly approaches to IT systems design and development, the relationships between work and technology, and inter-disciplinary approaches to the design of dependable computing systems. carrying out a number of ethnomethodologically informed studies in a variety of applications. He holds a Ph.D. in ethnomethodology from the University of Manchester and is currently involved in research on computer-aided prompting systems for radiological work. He has interests in ethnomethodology, CSCW, SSK and the philosophy of social sciences. where he convenes an interdisciplinary research programme on ‘the social shaping of technology’

Institutional and cultural barriers to transferring Lean production to China: Evidence from a German automotive components manufacturer

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Asian Business & Management. The definitive publisher-authenticated version ZIMMERMANN, A. and BOLLBACH, M., 2015. Institutional and cultural barriers to transferring Lean production to China: evidence from a German automotive components manufacturer. Asian Business & Management, 14 (1), pp. 53 - 85. is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/abm.2014.18Our qualitative study of a globally operating German automotive components manufacturer demonstrates how certain cognitive dispositions and behaviours of Chinese employees acted as barriers to the transfer of the firm’s Lean production system to its subsidiaries in China. We analyse how these barriers were rooted in the Chinese institutional and cultural context, thereby contributing a new micro-level perspective to business systems literature. Our findings further suggest that manufacturing in China will not be truly ‘Lean’ in the near future, which may place constraints on China’s technological development at a larger scale

Tiny Earth: A Big Idea for STEM Education and Antibiotic Discovery.

The world faces two seemingly unrelated challenges-a shortfall in the STEM workforce and increasing antibiotic resistance among bacterial pathogens. We address these two challenges with Tiny Earth, an undergraduate research course that excites students about science and creates a pipeline for antibiotic discovery