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a pilot for a car or a cybernetic rider, even more some agents could be shared by
both architectures. The schematic functioning of an agent can be represented by the
expression
agent
rider
pilot
<
−
>
perception
−
>
action
|
meaning that an agent, a rider or a pilot in our case, has to perceive its world of
work before act to modify it. Besides, as an agent can be split in other simpler or
various agents can be joint in one more complex, it is possible to distribute or to
group together the perception and the actuation agents in intermediate modules of
sensing, interpreting, representing, etc. the environment and to design an architecture
modular and hierarchical in which some of the modules, generally the ones placed
on the superior levels of the hierarchy, were common to the rider and to the pilot.
Also the control based on fuzzy logic confers generality to the exposed approach
because it allows modeling the human reasoning—since in the upper levels of the
hierarchy is similar for riding a horse or for driving a vehicle—and to avoid the
components and vehicle functioning or the anatomy and physiology of the horse.
It is evident that the analogies between the vehicle operation and the mobile robot
operation are closer that between the behaviors of a rider and a driver. Even more,
if we limit us to the individual control of a vehicle or a robot, the differences are not
be due to the control procedures but to some features of the work environments, to
some features of the mobile platforms and, over all, to the operation conditions. In
general the majority of mobile robots move slowly by interior zones relatively well
known and controlled, by the contrary the cars run fast by unknown and dynamic
environments—streets, roads, highways. Thus in a first approach we can say that the
differences between the control systems of the cybernetic riders and the automatic
pilot are to the kind of sensors that perceive the environments, to the kind of actuators
and to the required performances.
Until now we have considered robots or vehicles standalone, but indeed robots do
not operate always isolated and overall vehicles run among many others normally,
so we have to consider at least the interaction and better the cooperation among all
the control systems of the robots or vehicles present in the environment. Since now
we are going to forget the riders and the robots and in the following we will refer
to vehicles.
11.2 AUTOPÍA: First Steps
The successive steps of the AUTOPÍA program have always produced control sys-
tems that guide the vehicles in the execution of maneuvers of a greater level of
difficulty. Taking in mind the variety of traffic sceneries of in which vehicles can be
involved, we have designed modular control architectures able of integrating new
modules when they were necessary. In the first steps modules to control the velocity
and the steering were enough, after modules for communication—among vehicles
and with the infrastructure—were necessary for vehicle cooperation.
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