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mica
Mixed Initiative Control for Automa-teams
The MICA project has five major research thrusts:
(1) hierarchical architecture design for semi-automated, distributed teams of agents,
(2) control of hybrid systems,
(3) management of information,
(4) confrontation of uncertainty, and
(5) incorporating human intervention in mission planning and execution.
The overall system architecture features flexible team formation,
task specification, pre-mission evaluation, and changes in goals,
team composition, and tasks during mission execution.
Berkeley's simulation tools, such as SHIFT and Ptolemy
will be the initial platforms for design and evaluation.
Simulation models will be integrated into the Boeing OEP
platform.
The hybrid control component is organized in two levels.
Low-level controllers govern the real-time behavior of
physical resources such as vehicles. Higher-level
control is embodied in a hierarchy of semi-autonomous
teams tasked with planning, information collection and
distribution, assessment of mission execution, and
management of teams under their authority. Low-level
control will be based on continuous-time control techniques;
the design of high-level teams consists of numerical and
symbolic algorithms. SHIFT and Ptolemy will serve to
codify and evaluate the control design libraries in
different mission scenarios.
In the information management component, the project will look at
patially distributed teams operating in a dynamic
environment collecting and exchanging necessary information
over an unreliable network. This component will make uses of
advances achieved in the ONR-sponsored WoW (Web over
Wireless) project and the DARPA sponsored Smart Networks
project (part of ITO Program NMS).
Three types of uncertainty will be studied in the context of
mission planning and execution. Non-deterministic uncertainty
will be handled through tools based on the theory
of verification. Probabilistic uncertainty will be assessed
via Markovian models. Adversarial uncertainty will be
conceptualized in game-theoretic approaches. Our control
designs will take into account the appropriate type of
uncertainty.
Mission planning and execution must incorporate three modes
of human intervention at all levels of decision-making.
First, automatically synthesized plans, task and team
allocations, may be presented to a human operator for
approval and modification. Second, during mission execution,
reports from teams may be forwarded to a human operator
who may intervene to abort or modify team tasks. Third,
when a team encounters an unanticipated situation,
an "exception" is invoked and handled either by a superior
agent or a human operator. Such exception-handling
capability is essential to any highly automated mission.
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