Man-Machine Interface for Autonomous Robots and Multi-Agent Robotic Systems

摘要

The article provides an overview of tools and methods of man-machine interface for special types of robotic systems. It continues the series of previous publications on multi-robot systems that can provide a cooperative solution to the specified task. Although most multi-robot systems research is centered around the problems of group control, it is obvious that the effectiveness of such systems will be determined by the capabilities of man-machine interface designed to interact with them. In this article we show the evolution of man-machine interfaces starting from manually controlled robots and finishing with autonomous robots. We also discuss a variety of approaches to implementation of such interfaces. From the analysis of modern interfaces functional capabilities we offer the construction principles of man-machine interface for multi-agent robotic systems. These principles are based on complex automatization of information preprocessing for a multi-robot systems at every stage of their operation; intellectualization of decision-making process; software modularity and unification. The structure and composition of software and algorithmic tools for multi-robot group's task description are justified including the systems responsible for information input/output; task scenario model formation; agents number estimation; task planning; multi-robot system modelling; information gathering and interpretation. Supervising software is presented that controls the coordinated functioning of man-machine interface subsystems. The results of the simulation are given including the task scenario formation and its execution monitoring.