Natural Language Programming of Complex Robotic BDI Agents

This paper presents a natural language design environment that enables the programming of complex robotic agent systems, comprising of a top level BDI architecture in conjunction with a low level operational system that relates to the hardware interface and supplemental computational processes. The design environment enforces synergy between the development of these traditionally disparate aspects through sharing of ontological information and implementing a form of natural language programming called sEnglish. The resultant system provides an inherent abstraction of defined operational concepts and procedures for agent reasoning and shared meaning between man and machine. Through this shared knowledge the robot's operational logic and skill execution details are clear to human operators and may thus facilitate the work of design teams to enable rapid prototyping of physical agent systems in simulation or hardware.