Cognitive Robotics Resources

The resources here are intended to support the IEEE Robotics and Automation Technical Committee for Cognitive Robotics. Many were developed as part of euCognition, an EU-funded network for the advancement of artificial cognitive systems.

Software Resources

AKIRA

AKIRA is an open source C++ framework for designing distributed, modular agent architectures (e.g., schema-based, behaviour-based, etc.) Some features of the framework include:

• support for decentralized, asynchronous and parallel processing;
• flexible implementation of the beahavior each module, with libraries for implementing soft computing algorithms (neural networks, fuzzy logic, fuzzy cognitive maps, etc.);
• flexible implementation of modules interaction (the default is inspired by complex systems research, i.e. local excitation and global inhibition among the modules);
• communication via blackboard and shared global variables;
• works under linux.

See: Giovanni Pezzulo and Gianguglielmo Calvi (2007). Designing Modular Architectures in the Framework AKIRA. Multiagent and Grid Systems, 3, 65--86.

More details.

AmonI - Artificial Models of Natural Intelligence

Behavior Oriented Design (BOD) and POSH Action Selection, and much more ...

Behaviour oriented design is a methodology for developing intelligent systems. It extends object oriented design to the special problems of proactive systems, including real-time systems for dynamic enviornments. To the extent that these systems are agents, they need goals and priorities; in BOD these are specified using POSH action selection.

More details.

CAST: The CoSy Architecture Schema Toolkit

This a software toolkit to support the developments of intelligent systems based on a space of possible architecture designs described by the CoSy Architecture Schema (CAS). The CoSy Architecture Schema Toolkit (CAST) is a software implementation of this schema designed to allow researchers (primarily in the fields of AI and robotics) to develop instantiations of the schema. The toolkit supports C++ and Java, and provides a communication framework for distributing an instantiation across a network. Its primary scientific purpose is to maintain a separation between a system's architecture and the content of its architecture, allowing one to be varied independently of the other; more details.

Education

Tutorials

Neuronal Dynamics Approaches to Cognitive Robotics

Tutorial on Embodiment

Control engineering of autonomous cognitive vehicles - a practical tutorial