Robot media communication: an interactive real-world guide agent

Describes a guide system and the software architecture for an autonomous, interactive robot based on a multi-agent system. A robot navigation system has been developed allowing the robot to guide people through halls in various types of exhibitions. Our approach uses an infrared location system in the hallway ceilings, making the environment part of a sensor-distributed robot system. The real-world guide agent is composed of a guide agent on a hand-held mobile computer and a robot agent on an autonomous mobile robot. The guide agent plays the role of "robot media" in order to integrate information in the information space of the mobile computer and the physical space of the exhibits in order to guide visitors through the physical space. This research aims to develop a cooperative adaptive system using two-way communication among spaces, media and human beings to construct transparent knowledge boundaries between the real space and the virtual space. The virtual space is generated from computer data using shared space technology and it creates a distributed intelligence in order to manage the communication and control the guide in a laboratory. We have experimented with and verified this software architecture using a prototype autonomous mobile robot equipped with a compass.