Design Of An Autonomous And Distributed Robot System: Actress

Abstract

A new concept of an advanced robot system, ACTRESS (ACTor-based Robots and Equipments Synthetic System), is presented in this paper. ACTRESS is an autonomous and distributed robot system composed of multi robotic elements. Each element is provided with functions to make decisions with understanding the target of tasks, recognizing surrounding environments, acting, and managing its own conditions, and to communicate with any other components. In order to manage multiple elements to achieve any given task targets, the protocol for communication between elements is discussed for cooperative action between arbitrary elements. This paper deals with the conceptual design of ACTRESS, focusing on the methodology for synthesizing the autonomous and distributed system. Also based on an assumption that mobility is the indispensable function for advanced robot systems, an experimental system using micro mouse'^ is developed as a primitive example of ACTRESS.