Autonomous and Intelligent Mobile Systems based on Multi-Agent Systems

Abstract

The control of current robotic systems in manufacturing industry and the service sector has remained separate and independent. In other words, these robotic systems are isolated from one another by different environments and have no effective way to communicate. This has made the current robotic systems expensive and requiring a long developing cycle, which has in turn seriously hampered the day-to-day deployment of robot technology. Therefore it is crucial to develop an integrated network environment for robotic systems based on today's Internet technology. With the rapid growth of the Internet, more and more intelligent devices or systems have been embedded into it for service, security and entertainment, including distributed computer systems, surveillance cameras, telescopes, manipulators and mobile robots. Although the notion of Internet robotics or web-based robotics is relatively new and still in its infancy, it has captured the huge interest of many researchers worldwide. Except for operating in hazardous environments that are traditional telerobotic areas, Internet robotics has opened up a completely new range of real-world applications, for example in the following fields (Le parc & al., 2008): 1. Tele-teaching: a lot of universities are using robots to teach the basics of electrical engineering. The profitability of these robots is of course really poor because they are only used a few weeks a year. Why not developing common centers where students may have access to real robots without being close to them? One of the problems of elearning is to make practical experiments. Why not using Internet technologies to let distant students to manipulate real systems? 2. Tele-maintenance: when a company is shipping systems all over the world, it needs to technicians when one of its systems has some failures. With Internet technologies, it is now possible to make some remote diagnostics, to solve and repair some problems, to prepare the right equipment to send, etc. 3. Tele-expertise: some specific operations on robotic systems can only be made by expert. In a close future, it will become possible for experts to operate from their office a machine located somewhere in the World, just using classic web technologies. 4. Tele-production: the remote access possibilities and taking control will make work easier for remote users and will allow the performances of more tasks in the future.