ＲＴ‐Ｍｉｃｈｅｌｅ： 分散環境に対応したヒューマン・ロボット・インタフェースシステム

Abstract

In recent years, to improve productivity of organization, the computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) systems that support cooperative work of human have been studied and many CSCW systems have been developed. Most of these systems use computer networks and transport electronic information through the networks. But in the real world, the cooperative work consists of not only electronic information but also physical information, that can be reprenented only by physical entities.In this paper we propose human-robot interface system called RT-Michele, that utilizes mobile robots in order to transport physical entities among humans. RT-Michele provides multi-agent model that can describe the cooperative work of humans and mobile robots. With the multi-agent model of RT-Michele, both synchronous and asynchronous communication and communication both via electronic and via physical information between humans and robots can be described. And we also have developed the prototype system of RT-Michele by utilizing mobile robot Einstein that was developed in our laboratory. In the paper we describe the multi-agent model of RT-Michele, the agent description language MDL/C++, implementation issues and the office automation application which is cooperative work by human and the mobile robot.