The Examples of Applications of the Agent Systems - A Perspective on Agent Systems - page 88

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A certain extension of this concept is to consider a few agents cooperating in
cyberspace as a robot. Such a group of agents, which is a robot from cyberspace,
manages the classic robot from real-space.
Similarly, we may also consider a situation when a robot in cyberspace has a set
of tools (a group of classic robots) in real-space.

5.1.2 Examples of the Application of the Concept
of an Agent-Robot in Cyberspace

As an example of applications of the above approach, we will consider:
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classic robots depot management in the multi-robot systems,

￿ control of the robot's expedition through difficult transitions (narrow gates).

The applications given above do not exhaust all the possibilities that are given by
this approach; they are only its simpler examples.

5.1.2.1 The Farm (depot) of Robots

The concept of farms (depots) of robots uses the concept of mobile robot management
with the use of an agent existing in cyberspace. The transfer of a decision-making
process to the agent and considering a classic robot in real-space as a tool gives,
in this case, new possibilities of robot management. Classic robots (referred to as
robots-tools or simply robots) are grouped in farms (or depots) of robots (Fig. 5.2 ).
There they are serviced and particularly their resources of energy are replenished,
they can also be replaced with new models and, generally speaking, prepared for the
action—future realization of tasks they are entrusted with. The agent which has a
particular task to perform may hire a certain robot (as a tool), i.e., a classic robot in
the farm (depot) of robots. This kind of action is shown in Fig. 5.2 . The agent A g
has to realize the task Z . To this purpose, it communicates with the agents managing
the depot of robots and particularly with the agent A g F 1 and starts negotiation on
hiring a robot—a tool (a classic robot) (Fig. 5.2 a). As a result of negotiations, the
agent hires a robot-the tool Rb 1 (Fig. 5.2 b). The agent takes over the management of
that robot and uses it to realize the task Z (Fig. 5.2 c). After the task is realized, the
agent A g returns the robot-the tool Rb 1 to the depots of classic robots and hands over
control of the tool to the agent A g F 1 from the depot of robots (Fig. 5.2 d).

5.1.2.2 The Expedition of Robots Through the Narrow Gate

The exemplary expedition of robots through the narrow gate is realized according to
the following scenario:
To realize further tasks, the agent A g needs to lead an expedition of the related
robot R (the one it controls) in real-space (Fig. 5.3 a).