AITIA performs research activities funded both by research grants and the research budget of the firm. Our firm has been conducting the following research projects during the past years.

 

Integrated ultrasonic echolocation and radio system to help the blind or visually impaired to navigate

 

During this project we plan to develop a combined, bi-functional appliance for the blind or visually impaired which helps to direct navigation and accessing travel information. A stereo ultrasonic echolocation system will provide direct object avoidance, and a radio system will help in identifying buildings and vehicles using fixed sets attached to buildings and vehicles, and a combined appliance worn by the blind or visually impaired. The system will be able to provide real-time traffic information and route recommendation.

 

Applied speech information systems

 

The project covers basic and applied research, core technology development and demonstration of possible practical applications. These activities include elementary speech processing (automatic speech recognition and speech synthesis), as well as integration of speech and natural language technologies. The project also demonstrates solutions for two specific applications based on the research incomes: voice portal integrated into the call center of a telco operator, and extension of a web-based user interface for intelligent homes with remote verbal control.

 

Integrating web sources into the Agentcities initiative of the EU

 

The goal of this project is to develop an interface technology that enables the generation of an agent layer from an Internet information source. The Internet information source can then behave as a FIPA conformant agent using this communication layer. This interface technology potentially opens the whole Internet space for the Agentcitites initiative. The interface technology developed in the project will be demonstrated in a library system. There are web based interfaces to library systems. A librarian agent will be installed in the Budapest Agentcities mode as a prototype agent service and will be tested in a demonstrational application.

 

AntChess

 

AntChess, revolutionary computer chess game developed by AITIA, is using local tactics to face its opponent instead of the classical, chessboard overview oriented, global strategy.

The new method is illustrating the change of the strategical approach: besides plans overviewing the agents and their co-ordination, efficient, viable and emergent tactics can evolve from the interactions of the agents having only local information and interaction capabilities.

Multi-Agent Modelling Language

The initiative for developing MAML was based on our experiences with students of social sciences who wanted to create agent-based models. These experiences showed that it is rather hard for them to implement their ideas because they have not been trained as programmers. In 1997 we began by examining several existing software packages for scientific modeling and simulation and selected Swarm, a project of the Santa Fe Institute. However, it turned out that despite the various ways Swarm helps users, it was still too complicated for our social science users. So, we have decided to develop our own environment, specifically designed for our users. This environment uses the Swarm system as a basis and compiles the MAML code to Swarm. However, with the aid of our environment it is much easier to create various agent-based models than with the Swarm package alone. There are many users of MAML around the world. It is used as a teaching tool in various institutions in Hungary and in the US. There are also several publications related to the product. Please visit the MAML website for more information, downloads and example programs.