The paper presents a universal architectural pattern and an associated specification method that can be applied in the design of robot control systems. The approach describes the system in terms of embodied agents and proposes a multi-step decomposition enabling precise definition of their inner structure and operation. An embodied agent is decomposed into effectors, receptors, both real and virtual, and a control subsystem. Those entities communicate through communication buffers. The activities of those entities are governed by FSMs that invoke behaviours formulated in terms of transition functions taking as arguments the contents of input buffers and producing the values inserted into output buffers. The method is exemplified by applying it to the design of a control system of a robot executing one of the most important tasks for a service robot, i.e. picking up, by a position–force controlled robot, an object located using an RGB-D image acquired from a Kinect. Moreover in order to substantiate the universality of the presented approach we present how classical, known from the literature, robotic architectures can be expressed as systems composed of one or more embodied agents.

Fluted ground moraine deposits in the forefield zones of the Blomli, Scott and Renard glaciers were investigated. It was found that the fluted moraine crests, especially the stone-rich ones, continue on the glacier front surface as cones or stony belts. The linear ablation forms, partly filled by the supraglacial sediment, are the extensions of the crests formed from the finer material. Thus, the opinion is expressed that the ribs and furrows at the top surface of the ground moraine are the result of the supraglacial material deposition and that they reflect the differentation of the ablation relief of the front surface of the recessing glacier. Till now the fluted relief origin was joined exclusively with the subglacial conditions and such forms were considered as the indicators of the glacier movement direction.