MULTIAGENT MISSION SPECIFICATION AND EXECUTION

Specifying a reactive behavioral configuration for use by a multiagent team requires both a careful choice of the behavior set and the creat ion of a temporal chain of behaviors which executes the mission. This difficult task is simplified by applying an object-oriented approach t o the design of the mission using a construction called an assemblage and a methodology called temporal sequencing. The assemblage construct allows building high level primitives which provide abstractions for the designer. Assemblages consist of groups of basic behaviors and coo rdination mechanisms that allow the group to be treated as a new coher ent behavior. Upon instantiation, the assemblage is parameterized base d on the specific mission requirements. Assemblages can be re-paramete rized and used in other states within a mission or archived as high le vel primitives for use in subsequent projects. Temporal sequencing par titions the mission into discrete operating states with perceptual tri ggers causing transitions between those states. Several smaller indepe ndent configurations (assemblages) can then be created which each impl ement one state. The Societal Agent theory is presented as a basis for constructions of this form. The Configuration Description Language (C DL) is developed to capture the recursive composition of configuration s in an architecture- and robot-independent fashion. The MissionLab sy stem(1), an implementation based on CDL, supports the graphical constr uction of configurations using a visual editor. Various multiagent mis sions are demonstrated in simulation and on our Denning robots using t hese tools.