The design of cognitive agents involves a knowledge representation (KR) to formally represent and manipulate information relevant for that agent. In practice, agent programming frameworks are dedicated to a specific KR, limiting the use of other possible ones. In this paper we address the issue of creating a flexible choice for agent programmers regarding the technology they want to use. We propose a generic interface, that provides an easy choice of KR for cognitive agents. Our proposal is governed by a number of design principles, an analysis of functional requirements that cognitive agents pose towards a KR, and the identification of various features provided by KR technologies that the interface should capture. We provide two use-cases of the interface by describing its implementation for Prolog and OWL with rules.@en

In search and rescue missions robots are used to help rescue workers in exploring the disaster site. Our research focuses on how multiple robots and rescuers act as a team, and build up situation awareness. We propose a multi-agent system where each agent supports one member, either human or robot. For representing high-level information about the mission, we design an ontology that serves as a shared knowledge base for the agents. We investigate how to create agent-based ontological reasoning to provide team members with decision support, automate basic monitoring tasks, and realize the display logic that dictates how to display useful information for the rescuers, based on their different roles, tasks and situations.@en