Common components of hybrid architectures

Common components of hybrid architectures

While Hybrid architectures vary significantly in how they implement deliberative
functionality, what they implement is fairly similar. Generally a
Hybrid architecture has the following modules or objects:
 SEQUENCERA Sequencer agent which  generates the set of behaviors to use in order to
accomplish a subtask, and determines any sequences and activation conditions.
The sequence is usually represented as a dependency network or
a finite state machine, but the sequencer should either generate this structure
or be able to dynamically adapt it. Recall fromCh. 5 that assemblages
of reactive behavior are manually constructed.
RESOURCE MANAGER  A Resource manager which allocates resources to behaviors, including selecting
from libraries of schemas. For example, a robot may have stereo
vision, sonars, and IR sensors, all of which are capable of range detection.
The behavioralmanager would ascertain whether the IR sensors can
detect at a sufficient range, the stereo vision can update fast enough to
match the robot’s desired velocity, and the sonars have enough power to
produce reliable readings. In reactive architectures, the resources for a
behavior were often hard-coded or hardwired, despite the ability of hu

mans to use alternative sensors and effectors (e.g., opening a door with
the other hand when the holding something in the preferred hand).
 CARTOGRAPHERA Cartographer which is responsible  for creating, storing, and maintaining
map or spatial information, plus methods for accessing the data. The
cartographer often contains a global world model and knowledge representation,
even if it is not a map.
MISSION PLANNER  A Mission Planner which interacts with the human, operationalizes the
commands into robot terms, and constructs a mission plan. For example,
the ideal robot assistant might be given a command: “Lassie, go get the
sheriff.” The mission planner would interpret that command to mean to
first physically search for a person, identify him as a sheriff because of
the uniform, attract his attention, and then lead him back to the current
location. The mission planner might have access to information that sheriffs
are most likely to be in their office, donut shops, or the last place they
were seen. The plan might first be to navigate to the sheriff’s office.
PERFORMANCE  MONITORING AND
PROBLEM SOLVING -APerformanceMonitoring and ProblemSolving agentwhich allows the robot

to notice if it is making progress or not. Notice that this requires the robot
to exhibit some type of self-awareness.