REAPER: A Reflexive

This article describes the winning entries in the 2000 American Association for Artificial Intelligence Mobile Robot Competition. The robots, developed by Swarthmore College, all used a modular hybrid architecture designed to enable reflexive responses to perceptual input. Within this architecture, the robots integrated visual sensing, speech synthesis and recognition, the display of an animated face, navigation, and interrobot communication. As any AI researcher knows, developing one robot for a real-world task such as serving hors d'oeuvres to a crowded room can be a significant undertaking. Our plan was to have a team of three agents participate in the hors d'oeuvres-serving contest and have one mobile robot attempt the Urban-Search-and-Rescue (USAR) event.