Effects of virtual agents on interaction efficiency and environmental immersion in MR environments

Background Physical entity interactions in mixed reality(MR)environments aim to harness human capabilities in manipulating physical objects,thereby enhancing virtual environment(VEs)functionality.In MR,a common strategy is to use virtual agents as substitutes for physical entities,balancing interaction efficiency with environmental immersion.However,the impact of virtual agent size and form on interaction performance remains unclear.Methods Two experiments were conducted to explore how virtual agent size and form affect interaction performance,immersion,and preference in MR environments.The first experiment assessed five virtual agent sizes(25%,50%,75%,100%,and 125%of physical size).The second experiment tested four types of frames(no frame,consistent frame,half frame,and surrounding frame)across all agent sizes.Participants,utilizing a head mounted display,performed tasks involving moving cups,typing words,and using a mouse.They completed questionnaires assessing aspects such as the virtual environment effects,interaction effects,collision concerns,and preferences.Results Results from the first experiment revealed that agents matching physical object size produced the best overall performance.The second experiment demonstrated that consistent framing notably enhances interaction accuracy and speed but reduces immersion.To balance efficiency and immersion,frameless agents matching physical object sizes were deemed optimal.Conclusions Virtual agents matching physical entity sizes enhance user experience and interaction performance.Conversely,familiar frames from 2D interfaces detrimentally affect interaction and immersion in virtual spaces.This study provides valuable insights for the future development of MR systems.

基于W3C标准语言的动态语音Virtual Agent

W3C多形式交互框架为语音交互和多形式的应用提供了开发语言标准,为娱乐、教育和商业领域提供了新的应用平台.介绍了W3C标准语言以及W3C多形式框架,阐述了动态语音Virtual Agent的概念,并形象地说明了在W3C多形式框架下建构的不可视和可视化Virtual Agent两个范例.

COLLISION AVOIDANCE DECISION-MAKING MODEL OF MULTI-AGENTS IN VIRTUAL DRIVING ENVIRONMENT WITH ANALYTIC HIERARCHY PROCESS

Collision avoidance decision-making models of multiple agents in virtual driving environment are studied. Based on the behavioral characteristics and hierarchical structure of the collision avoidance decision-making in real life driving, delphi approach and mathematical statistics method are introduced to construct pair-wise comparison judgment matrix of collision avoidance decision choices to each collision situation. Analytic hierarchy process （AHP） is adopted to establish the agents＇ collision avoidance decision-making model. To simulate drivers＇ characteristics, driver factors are added to categorize driving modes into impatient mode, normal mode, and the cautious mode. The results show that this model can simulate human＇s thinking process, and the agents in the virtual environment can deal with collision situations and make decisions to avoid collisions without intervention. The model can also reflect diversity and uncertainly of real life driving behaviors, and solves the multi-objective, multi-choice ranking priority problem in multi-vehicle collision scenarios. This collision avoidance model of multi-agents model is feasible and effective, and can provide richer and closer-to-life virtual scene for driving simulator, reflecting real-life traffic environment more truly, this model can also promote the practicality of driving simulator.

Cyber-Physical-Social System Between a Humanoid Robot and a Virtual Human Through a Shared Platform for Adaptive Agent Ecology

Two artificial agents(a humanoid robot and a virtual human) are enriched with various similar intelligence,autonomy, functionalities and interaction modalities. The agents are integrated in the form of a cyber-physical-social system(CPSS) through a shared communication platform to create a social ecology. In the ecology, the agents collaborate(assist each other) to perform a real-world task(search for a hidden object)for the benefits of humans. A robot-virtual human bilateral trust model is derived and a real-time trust measurement method is developed. The role of taking initiative in the collaboration is switched between the agents following a finite state machine model triggered by bilateral trust, which results in a mixedinitiative collaboration. A scheme is developed to evaluate the performance of the agents in the ecology through the CPSS.The results show that the robot and the virtual human perform satisfactorily in the collaboration through the CPSS. The results thus prove the effectiveness of the real-world ecology between artificial agents of heterogeneous realities through a shared platform based on trust-triggered mixed-initiatives. The results can help develop adaptive social ecology comprising intelligent agents of heterogeneous realities to assist humans in various tasks through collaboration between the agents in the form of a CPSS.

A Mobile Agent-Based Prototype of HeterogeneousDistributed Virtual Environment Systems

Mobile agents provide a new method for the distributed computation. This paper presents the advantages of using mobile agents in a distributed virtual environment (DVE) system, and describes the architecture of heterogeneous computer's distributed virtual environment system (HCWES) designed to populate some mobile agents as well as stationary agents. Finally, the paper introduces how heterogeneous computer network communication is to be realized.

SATVPC:Secure-agent-based trustworthy virtual private cloud model in open computing environments

Private clouds and public clouds are turning mutually into the open integrated cloud computing environment,which can aggregate and utilize WAN and LAN networks computing,storage,information and other hardware and software resources sufficiently,but also bring a series of security,reliability and credibility problems.To solve these problems,a novel secure-agent-based trustworthy virtual private cloud model named SATVPC was proposed for the integrated and open cloud computing environment.Through the introduction of secure-agent technology,SATVPC provides an independent,safe and trustworthy computing virtual private platform for multi-tenant systems.In order to meet the needs of the credibility of SATVPC and mandate the trust relationship between each task execution agent and task executor node suitable for their security policies,a new dynamic composite credibility evaluation mechanism was presented,including the credit index computing algorithm and the credibility differentiation strategy.The experimental system shows that SATVPC and the credibility evaluation mechanism can ensure the security of open computing environments with feasibility.Experimental results and performance analysis also show that the credit indexes computing algorithm can evaluate the credibilities of task execution agents and task executor nodes quantitatively,correctly and operationally.

An Intelligent Agent Based on Virtual Geographic Environment System

On the basis of previous work, this paper designs an intelligent agent based on virtual geographic environment (VGE) system that is characterized by huge data, rapid computation, multi\|user, multi\|thread and intelligence and issues challenges to traditional GIS models and algorithms. The new advances in software and hardware technology lay a reliable basis for system design, development and application.

Intelligent Interfaces: Pedagogical Agents and Virtual Humans

Little by little, we are entering the new era, intelligent interfaces are absorbing us more and more every day, and artificial intelligence makes its presence in a stealthy way. Virtual humans that represent an evolution of autonomous virtual agents;they are computer programs and in the future capable of carrying out different activities in certain environments. They will give the illusion of being human;they will have a body, and they will be immersed in an environment. They will have a set of senses that will allow them: 1) Sensations and therefore associated expressions;2) Communication;3) Learning;4) Remembering events, among others. By integrating the above, they will have a personality and autonomy, so they will be able to plan with respect to objectives;allowing them to decide and take actions with their body, in other words, they will count on awareness. The applications will be focused on environments that they will inhabit, or as interfaces that will interact with other systems. The application domains will be multiple;one of them being education. This article shows the design of OANNA like an avatar with the role of pedagogical agent. It was modeled as an affective-cognitive structure related to the teaching-learning process linked to a pedagogical agent that represents the interface of an artilect. OANNA, has the necessary animations for intervention within the teaching-learning process.

Agent-oriented Virtual Environment Modeling

Virtual environment has been widely applied in scientific research and considered as an important tool of exploring science.But constructing a real virtual environment is rather difficult.The difficulty cannot be compared with developing general software,It has a high demand for sofware technology,Obviously traditional methods are not competent for the job.Fortunately with the development of agent-oriented technologies ,all problems seem to be solved.By classifying a virtual environment into four layers corresponding with real world and considering it as a collection of agents,the virtual objects can be mapped into agents and an agent model can be designed.Based on the idea that the state change of a system is caused by that of in dividuals and the mutual effect among them,a theory of agent behavior driven by event and belief is put for ward.Such agent-oriented modeling method can cope with the demand for handling multi-dimension information.It is an effective technique for constructing a large and complex virtual environment.

Research on Virtual Agent Perception Model

An intelligent virtual environment is described for training users in the operation of complex engineering systems. After analyzing the original model of virtual environment, a virtual agent perception model was put forward. The information layer was inserted into original virtual environment. The model classifies all kinds of information and offers a way for knowledge description of virtual environment, and contributes to set up feeling model for the Virtual Agent within virtual environment.

An Artificial Intelligence Based Virtual Assistant Using Conversational Agents

Conversational agents are natural language interaction interfaces designed to simulate human conversations using Artificial Intelligence (AI). This paper explores current applications of these systems and raises the lack of their availability in education. To address this problem, we provide the design of a conversational agent system, which is efficient and time-saving in assisting student/college seeking information about curriculum, scheduling, teachers, classroom location at any time 24/7/365. To verify and validate the design and implementation of our proposed model, a pilot project has been set up involving three leading academic institutions. This platform is designed and developed to help universities provide continuous and instant assistance to their student, staff, and faculty communities.

Human Centered Design in Multi-agent Virtual Environment

The efficient and reliable human centered design of products and processes is a major goal in manufacturing industries for numerous human factors must be taken into account during the entire life cycle of products. A multi-agents intelligent design system is presented for manufacturing process simulation and products＇ ergonomic analysis. In virtual design environment, the virtual human with high-level intelligence performs tasks＇ operation autonomously and shows optimum posture configuration with ergonomic assessment results in real time. The functions are realized by intelligent agents architecture based on a modem approach derived from fuzzy multi-objects decision-making theory. A case study is presented to demonstrate the feasibility of the suggested methodology.

Supply Chain Management System Model of Virtual Enterprises Based on Multi-Agent

Based on the analysis of a virtual enterprise and the development of supply chain management, their integration is proposed. Then, the difference between multi-agent system modeling method and the traditional modeling method is analyzed, and a method based on Java agent framework for multi-agent systems（ JAFMAS） is proposed. By using this method the virtual enterprise＇ s supply chain management system model is established.

煤矿井下掘进机器人路径规划方法研究

针对煤矿非全断面巷道条件下掘进机器人移机难度大、效率低下等问题,分析了煤矿井下非结构化环境特征及掘进机器人运动特性,提出了基于深度强化学习的掘进机器人机身路径规划方法。利用深度相机将巷道环境实时重建,在虚拟环境中建立掘进机器人与巷道环境的碰撞检测模型,并使用层次包围盒法进行虚拟环境碰撞检测,形成巷道边界受限下的避障策略。考虑到掘进机器人形体大小且路径规划过程目标单一,在传统SAC算法的基础上引入后见经验回放技术,提出HER-SAC算法,该算法通过环境初始目标得到的轨迹扩展目标子集,以增加训练样本、提高训练速度。在此基础上,基于奖惩机制建立智能体,根据掘进机器人运动特性定义其状态空间与动作空间,在同一场景下分别使用3种算法对智能体进行训练,综合平均奖励值、最高奖励值、达到最高奖励值的步数以及鲁棒性4项性能指标进行对比分析。为进一步验证所提方法的可靠性,采用虚实结合的方式,通过调整目标位置设置2种实验场景进行掘进机器人的路径规划,并将传统SAC算法和HER-SAC算法的路径结果进行对比。结果表明:相较于PPO算法和SAC算法,HER-SAC算法收敛速度更快、综合性能达到最优;在2种实验场景下,HER-SAC算法相比传统SAC算法规划出的路径更加平滑、路径长度更短、路径终点与目标位置的误差在3.53 cm以内,能够有效地完成移机路径规划任务。该方法为煤矿掘进机器人的自主移机控制奠定了理论基础,为煤矿掘进设备自动化提供了新方法。

基于虚拟领导节点改进的孤岛微电网完全分布式二次调频策略

传统分布式二次调频策略在虚拟领导节点频率信息出现故障时会导致微电网系统频率无法恢复,针对该问题提出并设计一种完全分布式二次调频策略。首先分析传统分布式二次调频策略虚拟领导节点故障对二次调频过程产生的影响;然后,结合一致性算法对传统分布式二次调频控制器加以改进,通过将调频补偿量与频率偏差的对消作为“频率引导项”加入各分布式控制器中,使得各分布式发电单元完全对等,以保证虚拟领导节点去除后频率的正常恢复,实现完全分布式控制;最后,通过仿真验证所提方法在保证频率恢复方面的有效性与优越性。

基于多代理强化学习的多新型市场主体虚拟电厂博弈竞价及效益分配策略

目前新型市场主体规模较小但数量众多,为提高竞争力可以使其组成联盟以多新型市场主体虚拟电厂的形式参与市场博弈,而公平的效益分配方法是维持联盟稳定的基础。为此,该文提出了一种多新型市场主体虚拟电厂博弈竞价及效益分配策略。首先,考虑多新型市场主体虚拟电厂和传统机组均作为价格影响者,构建包含电能量和备用辅助服务的主辅联合市场交易模型,并在不完全信息市场环境下采用多代理强化学习(multi-agentreinforcementlearning,MADDPG)算法求解。其次,采用分布式联盟构造方法得到最优多新型市场主体联盟结构。为解决效益分配方法中的维数灾问题,引入蒙特卡洛近似夏普利值,对虚拟电厂内各新型市场主体的超额收益进行合理分配。最后,算例分析表明所提方法给出了多新型主体虚拟电厂参与主辅联合市场的最优联盟结构和竞价策略,在保证精度的前提下提高了超额收益分配的计算速度,与单独参与市场相比提高了所有新型市场主体的收益。

基于Multi-Agent的虚拟企业集成框架研究

本文采用多智能体技术构建虚拟企业集成框架 ,在该框架中 ,由 agent代表各成员企业 ,相应地 ,多智能体系统 (Multi- Agent System )代表虚拟企业 .其中重点提出了 agent通用结构 ,它包括核心层、接口、通讯层三个组成部分 :核心层由企业的原有系统构成 ,以保证企业的自治性 ;接口实现了 agent核心层与通讯层之间的信息交换 ;通讯层则支持 agent之间的交互 ,实现企业间的合作 .该虚拟企业集成框架不仅支持虚拟企业像一个企业一样进行工作 ,而且实现了虚拟企业的可重用、可重构和可扩充 ,并使企业根据需要同时参加多虚拟企业成为可能 .