NORMATIVE APPROACH FOR SOCIO-PHYSICAL COMPUTING An Application to Distributed Tangible Interaction Fabien Badeig 1 , Catherine Garbay 1 , Valentin Valls 2 and Jean Caelen 2 1 LIG/AMA, Universit´ e de Grenoble, UFR IM2AG, BP 53, F-38041 Grenoble Cedex 9, France 2 LIG/MultiCom, Universit´ e de Grenoble, UFR IM2AG, BP 53, F-38041 Grenoble Cedex 9, France Keywords: Ambient intelligence, Tangible distributed interfaces, Activity theory, Norms, Agent-based systems. Abstract: We present a normative multi-agent design for computer-supported collaboration in the framework of socio- physical computing. An example application (RISK game) in the context of the TangiSense platform supports the proposed approach. Our work is driven under four complementary views: a systemic view, according to which various designing levels, from the physical infrastructure to the social level of human coordination are integrated in a single modelling, a normative view, in which consistency and coordination of action is ensured with respect to individual as well as collective systems of norms, a trace-based view, in which traces reflecting human activity and its compliance to the norms are registered and an agent-oriented view, according to which agents are meant to process, interpret and communicate information across distant tables. 1 INTRODUCTION This research is conducted in the framework of a project (Lepreux et al., 2011), whose objective is the management of distant interactive surfaces support- ing tangible and virtual objects. The TangiSense table (Figure 1) may be seen as a magnetic retina, which is able to detect and locate tangible objects equipped with RFID tags. RFID tag events are transmitted to the host PC and processed by the infrastructure layer. The first role of this layer is to filter potentially unsta- ble tags IDs and positions. Its second role is to pro- ceed to the aggregation of tag events and to maintain consistent representations of tangible objects. Each RFID antenna is further equipped with 4 multicolor light emitting diodes (LEDs). When lit, they may be considered as virtual objects displayed on the ta- ble. The role of these diodes is to “react” to tangible objects positioning and moves, assessing for the user their effective detection by the table. Human activ- ity involves the handling of tangible objects. Com- munication between distant tables is managed via vir- tual objects displaying the status of the original tangi- ble objects. Our goal is that human collaboration be mediated rather than assisted by computerized tools. Our guiding principle is to preserve the spontaneity of human action by designing ecological working envi- ronments (Thomas and Kellogg, 1989). Our work is driven under: (i) a systemic view, integrating in a sin- gle homogeneous modelling the physical infrastruc- ture level as well as the higher level of human coor- dination; (ii) a normative view, in which various sys- tems of norms are introduced to mediate human activ- ity; (iii) a trace-based view, to record and transcribe human activity together with its compliance to this set of norms; and (iv) an agent-oriented view, accord- ing to which agents are meant to process, interpret and communicate information. Activity traces, which are generated by the handling of tangible objects, are made to evolve according to agent-based processing, but also under the systems of norms at hand. In ac- cordance with the principles of activity theory, norms do not act as a prerequisite, or as a way to apply a priori constraints on action. Rather, they are meant to “situate” action, by modifying trace properties that will in turn regulate agent activity, and for example in- fluence information or communication policies. The Risk game is used as an example application. 2 STATE OF THE ART When designing collaborative support systems, a ma- jor issue is to preserve the spontaneity and fluid- ity of human activity while ensuring the consistency and proper coordination of action (Pape and Graham, 2010). The COIN (Coordination, Organization, In- stitutions and Norms in Agent Systems) community 309 Badeig F., Garbay C., Valls V. and Caelen J.. NORMATIVE APPROACH FOR SOCIO-PHYSICAL COMPUTING - An Application to Distributed Tangible Interaction. DOI: 10.5220/0003717303090312 In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence (ICAART-2012), pages 309-312 ISBN: 978-989-8425-96-6 Copyright c  2012 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)