Janus: a Society of Agents Janus: a Society of Agents

In this report we describe the JANUS robot project in terms of the maxims followed at the various levels of construction. The project involves designing a two-armed robot which operates in an open system. To make this possible it must have exibility and heterogeneity in its architecture. The key ingredients of JANUS are presented in the form of seven fundamental principles. These principles give rise to a number of special design features, including reeective agents, a priori knowledge, concurrency, paralle-lism and adaptivity. The robot is constructed in a progressive and dynamic way: when a particular function is required, a simple agent that carries it out is programmed and it is incorporated easily into the team architecture. As example of the implementation of the ideas presented, we connne ourselves to the lowest, motor level, showing how a complex inverse kinematics func-tionality is built into the system using simple components.