A case study in the behavior oriented design of autonomous agents

The paper documents a case study in the de sign and implementation of a robotic multi agent system It illustrates known design guidelines namely that the physics of the environment must be exploited that behavior is the result from the interaction dynamics between the agent and the environment and that emergent behavior can and must be utilised whenever possible But the case study also challenges certain views such as the subsumption architecture the need for an ac tion selection mechanism the goal oriented design methodology dominating the literature on plan ning and the algorithmic style of writing control programs Alternatives are explored in the form of a cooperative parallel behavior oriented de sign