Robotic teleportation method and system

• US 6,675,156 B1
• Filed: 10/25/2000
• Issued: 01/06/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 10/26/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Sony France SA (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony France SA (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Kaplan, Frédéric, McIntyre, Angus, Steels, Luc
• Primary Examiner(s): Davis, George B.
• Application Number:
  US09/696,381
• Time in Patent Office: 1,168 Days
• Field of Search: 706/14, 700/250
• US Class Current: 706/14
• CPC Class Codes: B25J 9/1617 Cellular, reconfigurable manipulator, e.g. cebot
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 19/4086 Coordinate conversions; Other special calculations
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 3/008 based on physical entities controlled by simulated intelligence so as to replicate intelligent life forms, e.g. based on robots replicating pets or humans in their appearance or behaviour

Abstract

An autonomous system comprises an agent, constituting the behavioural identity of a robot, and a supporting device that is a physical installation which can implement the agent. The agent has a state which has a controlling influence on, and changes during, system operation. The agent'"'"'s state is distinguishable from, and isolatable from, the permanent parts of the supporting device. The supporting device comprises hardware, software components for operating the hardware, software components for maintaining the agent environment and non-changing parts of the agent implementation, and software components for reading/writing the isolable agent state. An extraction module can extract the agent state and transform it into a representation for transmission across a network. An inserting module can insert a received agent state into the supporting device so as to embody a received agent on that supporting device.

Claims

1. In a structure comprising a first system, a second system and a data transmission network,

the first system comprising at least one agent, each said agent corresponding to a collection of data structures defining functional capabilities of a robot, said collection of data structures constituting a behavioural identity of said robot, said robot comprising a supporting device being a physical installation in which said agent can be embodied, at least some of said data structures being subject to change during operation of the robot, having a controlling influence on the operation of the robot, and being distinguishable from and isolatable from said supporting device, said at least some data structures constituting the state of the agent;

a method for teleporting an agent from said first system to said second system through said data transmission network, the method comprising the steps of;

converting the state of one of said at least one agents in the first system into a serialized representation that can be transmitted over said data transmission network, and

transmitting said serialized representation from the first system to the second system over said data transmission network,

wherein said conversion and transmission steps occur in a loading process achieved using a stateless request/response communication protocol and a pair of message tokens, said loading process being one selected in the group consisting of an agent-download process requested by the second system to the first system or an agent-upload process offered by the first system to the second system.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the stateless request/response communication protocol used for downloading or uploading an agent is an HTTP protocol.

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein the downloading of an agent requested by the second system comprises the following steps:

a) providing in the first system a queue of waiting agents to be delivered to the second system

b) having the second system transmit a GET-NEXT-AGENT request to the first system

c) having a first waiting agent to be sent to the second system as a response system to the GET-NEXT-AGENT request transmitted by the second system

d) checking whether the first waiting agent is already present in the second system and ignoring this agent if the answer is yes,

e) installing in the second system the first waiting agent if this agent is not yet present, and sending an AGENT-PRESENT signal to the first system to indicate that the agent has been received, wherein the received agent is removed from the queue upon receipt of the AGENT-PRESENT signal by the first system,

f) repeating steps b) to e) for having all the requested subsequent waiting agents sent from the first system to the second system until the first system emits a “

no-more-agents”

token.

4. A method according to claim 1, wherein the uploading of an agent present in the first system comprises the following steps:

a) providing in the first system a queue of waiting agents to be delivered to the second system

b) having the first system transmit an IS-AGENT-PRESENT request to the second system for the first waiting agent

c) having the first waiting agent deleted from the queue in the first system if the answer from the second system to the IS-AGENT-PRESENT request is “

yes”

d) having the first waiting agent sent to the second system with an UPLOAD-AGENT signal and deleted from the queue in the first system if the answer from the second system to the IS-AGENT-PRESENT request is “

no”

,

e) repeating steps b) to d) for each next first waiting agent in the first system until all waiting agents are deleted from the queue of waiting agents in the first system.

5. A method according to claim 1, wherein one of said first system and second system is a server system and said server system co-operates with a plurality of systems.

6. A method according to claim 1, wherein one of said first system and second system is a server system and the server system is a passive system which merely responds to messages sent by client systems without initiating a connection.

7. The teleportation method of claim 1, wherein an agent-download request is made by the second system to the first system, in a structure wherein the second system comprises a supporting device being a physical installation in which an agent can be embodied, said method further comprising the step of inserting the transmitted serialized agent state representation into said supporting device whereby to implement a robot having a behavioural identity corresponding to said teleported agent.

8. The teleportation method of claim 1, wherein an agent-upload offer is made by the first system to the second system, in a structure wherein the first system comprises a supporting device being a physical installation in which an agent can be embodied.

9. The teleportation method of claim 1, in a structure wherein each of said first system and said second system comprises a supporting device being a physical installation in which an agent can be embodied.

10. An autonomous system comprising:

at least one agent, each said agent corresponding to a collection of data structures defining functional capabilities of a robot, said collection of data structures constituting a behavioural identity of said robot, said robot comprising a supporting device being a physical installation in which said agent can be embodied, at least some of said data structures being subject to change during operation of the robot, having a controlling influence on the operation of the robot, and being distinguishable from and isolatable from said supporting device, said at least some data structures constituting the state of the agent, said agent, when embodied in a supporting device, having a core implementation in which first code is defined;

a supporting device in which one of said at least one agents is embodied so as to constitute a robot having a behavioural identity corresponding to the embodied agent, said supporting device comprising;

hardware components having a configuration which can be defined using second code and data,

software components for controlling general operation of said hardware components,

software components for maintaining an agent environment and parts of the agent implementation that do not change, and

software components for reading/writing said data structures of said agent that are subject to change during operation of the robot and that constitute the agent state;

extraction means for extracting the agent state and transforming the extracted agent state into a representation which can be transmitted across a data transmission network; and

inserting means for inserting a received agent state into the supporting device whereby to constitute a robot having a behavioural identity corresponding to an agent having the received agent state.

11. An autonomous system according to claim 10, wherein the agent state contains data that can be used in calculations performed by said first code defined in the core agent implementation as well as said second code and data representing the configuration of the hardware components of the supporting device.

12. An autonomous system according to claim 10, wherein said supporting device includes a memory in which key elements of the agent state are defined, and said extraction means comprises means for reading parts of the supporting device'"'"'s memory in which said key elements of the agent state are defined and means for converting the data found therein into a text or binary stream suitable for transmission.

13. An autonomous system according to claim 10, wherein the inserting means comprises means for interpreting the transmitted data received and means for updating the memory of the target supporting device in such a way as to embody the agent on that device.

14. An autonomous system according to claim 10, wherein it constitutes a server system co-operating with at least one system.

15. An autonomous system according to claim 10, wherein it constitutes a system co-operating with at least one server system.