A systematic agent framework for situated autonomous systems

Abstract

We present a formal framework of an autonomous agent as a collection of coordinated control loops, with a recurring sense, plan, act cycle. Our framework manages the information flow within the partitioned structure to ensure consistency in order to direct the flow of goals and observations in a timely manner. The resulting control structure improves scalability since many details of each controller can be encapsulated within a single control loop. This partitioned agent design promises a domain-independent, scalable and robust approach for control of real-world autonomous robots operating in dynamic environments. We validate our framework with experimental results from deployments in two different real-world domains.