AIBO Common World Model Thomas Jellema Stephan Kempkes Emanuele Venneri Rob Verkuylen

Introduction Started in 1980’s Not too many practical applications Testbeds Foraging and Coverage Multi-target Observation Box pushing and object transportation Exploration and flocking

Introduction Multi-Robot Global task which cannot be achieved by a single robot Higher performance by using multiple robots Multi-Robot vs. Multi Agents Real environment (uncertainty)

Taxonomy Cooperative Aware Strongly coordinated Strongly centralized Weakly centralized Distributed Weakly coordinated Not coordinated Unaware Cooperation

Taxonomy Cooperative Aware Strongly coordinated Strongly centralized Weakly centralized Distributed Weakly coordinated Not coordinated Unaware Knowledge No knowledge of other robots, no communication Communication possible through stigmergy Mainly used for foraging or box pushing Cooperation

Taxonomy Cooperative Aware Strongly coordinated Strongly centralized Weakly centralized Distributed Weakly coordinated Not coordinated Unaware Cooperation Knowledge Coordination No communication protocol Taking into account other robot’s actions “Follow the leader” object transportation

Taxonomy Cooperative Aware Strongly coordinated Strongly centralized Weakly centralized Distributed Weakly coordinated Not coordinated Unaware Cooperation Knowledge Coordination No communication protocol Reduce interference Aircraft free-flight mode (small detour allowed)

Taxonomy Cooperative Aware Strongly coordinated Strongly centralized Weakly centralized Distributed Weakly coordinated Not coordinated Unaware Coordination Organization Using communication protocol Leader chosen in advance High computational demand for leader

Taxonomy Cooperative Aware Strongly coordinated Strongly centralized Weakly centralized Distributed Weakly coordinated Not coordinated Unaware Coordination Organization Using communication protocol Leader chosen dynamically More robust than strongly centralized organization

Taxonomy Cooperative Aware Strongly coordinated Strongly centralized Weakly centralized Distributed Weakly coordinated Not coordinated Unaware Coordination Organization Using communication protocol, autonomous actions Robust to communication failure and robot malfunctioning Broadcast of Local Eligibility

World Model Robots maintain individual world model Contains perceptions of state of world Soccer: position, heading, ball, teammate and opponent positions Use all individual models for global world model Shared perception to minimize sensor reading error

Previous work AIBO team with global world model Difference in timestamps; no Kalman filtering High latency; only use shared ball position when ball cannot be located High error in vision; use teammate’s own estimated positions

Proposal To create a flexible communications platform for inter AIBO information exchange to the extend to create a Common World Model.

Proposal - cont Physical Protocol Messages Common World Model Remote Event Strategy …

References Dave Touretzky and Ethan Andrew of CMU Add multi-connection support to Wireless Help with Messaging Design German Code has form of CMW Gal Kaminka of Bar-Ilan Extensive Multi-Robot Research with AIBO’s

Approach Research Previous Work Create Multi AIBO Message Layer Add multi-connection support Register AIBO’s Subscribe to Events Expand current WorldModel to facilitate Common World Model Experiment with Common World Model

Message Layer Design AIBO’s registered with each other. Static or Dynamic(broadcast) EventRouter instance for each remote AIBO AIBO’s subscribe to receive event types. If no AIBO subscribes the originating AIBO won’t send the events or receive all events and just act on the ‘interesting’ ones.

Advantages Subscribing to events on other robots would be as simple as subscribing to events on the local machine. Flexible message layer usable for various multi-robot applications. Common World Model is just one application of the Message Layer. Updating the CWM in an AIBO would be the behavior to the event containing the WorldModel of another AIBO.

Planning

Questions