RCS: A cognitive architecture for intelligent multi-agent systems

RCS (Real-time Control System) is a cognitive architecture designed to enable any level of intelligent behavior, up to and including human levels of performance. RCS was inspired 30 years ago by a theoretical model of the cerebellum, the portion of the brain responsible for fine motor coordination and control of conscious motions. It was originally designed for sensory-interactive goal-directed control of laboratory manipulators. Over three decades, it has evolved into a real-time control architecture for intelligent machine tools, factory automation systems, and intelligent autonomous vehicles. RCS consists of a multi-layered multi-resolutional hierarchy of computational agents each containing elements of sensory processing (SP), world modeling (WM), value judgment (VJ), behavior generation (BG), and a knowledge database (KD). At the lower levels, these agents generate goal-seeking reactive behavior. At higher levels, they enable decision making, planning, and deliberative behavior. This paper is a product of U. S. Government employees in the course of their assigned duties, and therefore not subject to copyright.

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