Programming frameworks [1] are application generators with the following components: library of software modules (building blocks out of which the system is constructed), a method for designing new modules that can be appended to the above mentioned library, a pattern according to which ready modules can be assembled into a complete system jointly exerting control over it and realizing the task at hand. The presented transition function based formalism can be applied to specifying programming frameworks for robot controllers executing very diverse tasks. The paper deals with systems consisting of multiple embodied agents, influencing the environment through effectors, gathering information from the environment through sensors and communicating with other agents through communication channels. The presented code patterns pertain to behavioural agents. The formalism was instrumental in the design of MRROC++ robot programming framework, which has been used for producing controllers of single and two manipulator systems performing diverse tasks. The formalism introduces rigor into the discussion of the structure of embodied agent controllers. It is used as the means for the specification of the functions of the components of the control system and the structure of the communication links between them. This structures the implementation of a programming framework, and that in turn makes the coding of specific controllers much easier, both from the point of view of dealing with the hardware configuration of the system and the specific task that has to be executed.

The paper presents a universal architectural pattern and an associated specification method that can be applied in the design of robot control systems. The approach describes the system in terms of embodied agents and proposes a multi-step decomposition enabling precise definition of their inner structure and operation. An embodied agent is decomposed into effectors, receptors, both real and virtual, and a control subsystem. Those entities communicate through communication buffers. The activities of those entities are governed by FSMs that invoke behaviours formulated in terms of transition functions taking as arguments the contents of input buffers and producing the values inserted into output buffers. The method is exemplified by applying it to the design of a control system of a robot executing one of the most important tasks for a service robot, i.e. picking up, by a position–force controlled robot, an object located using an RGB-D image acquired from a Kinect. Moreover in order to substantiate the universality of the presented approach we present how classical, known from the literature, robotic architectures can be expressed as systems composed of one or more embodied agents.

Convenient human-computer interaction is essential to carry out many exhausting and concentration-demanding activities. One of them is cyber-situational awareness as well as dynamic and static risk analysis. A specific design method for a multimodal human-computer interface (HCI) for cyber-security events visualisation control is presented. The main role of the interface is to support security analysts and network operators in their monitoring activities. The proposed method of designing HCIs is adapted from the methodology of robot control system design. Both kinds of systems act by acquiring information from the environment, and utilise it to drive the devices influencing the environment. In the case of robots the environment is purely physical, while in the case of HCIs it encompasses both the physical ambience and part of the cyber-space. The goal of the designed system is to efficiently support a human operator in the presentation of cyberspace events such as incidents or cyber-attacks. Especially manipulation of graphical information is necessary. As monitoring is a continuous and tiring activity, control of how the data is presented should be exerted in as natural and convenient way as possible. Hence two main visualisation control modalities have been assumed for testing: static and dynamic gesture commands and voice commands, treated as supplementary to the standard interaction. The presented multimodal interface is a component of the Operational Centre, which is a part of the National Cybersecurity Platform. Creation of the interface out of embodied agents proved to be very useful in the specification phase and facilitated the interface implementation.