Vision
This project will primarily advance the state of the art in high-level
communication with and among robots. This communication will be based on a high-level
discourse model derived from human communication. Rather than focusing on improvements
of a single mode (like speech), communication will be multimodal and even involve
behaviours (like movements and gestures) as well as their recognition for advanced
Human-Robot Interaction. The discourse model will serve as a basis for advanced
Robot-Robot Interaction as well. In effect, a major objective of this work is a
unified communication approach. It will be implemented in a software platform for
communication. Based on this advanced approach to communication, both close cooperation
of robots with people and cooperating robots will be facilitated. Information exchange
amongst robots about the status of the shared environment will make the navigation
in cluttered areas more efficient
and safe. While collaborative behaviour is important, several other issues related
to advanced behaviour of robots in dynamic environments will be addressed as well:
detection and avoidance of dynamic obstacles, self-localization based on landmarks,
learning of a topological map indexed by these landmarks, as well as autonomous
navigation based on topological and metrical information. So, a major objective
of this work is to tackle more complex environments for robots as compared to previous
work. For showing the feasibility of the proposed innovations, a prototype robot
will be developed in the course of this project – a robot trolley. This robot will
be a prototype for such trolleys to be used in supermarkets, airports, etc. In addition
to carrying goods and to guide a user in a
complex, structured and dynamic environment, it will have a second function as a
walking aid. This function will support a challenged and/or elderly person to lean
on the trolley while the walking pace is controlled to follow a user-determined
setting.
Project Objectives
This project addresses the introduction of robots in everyday human
environments and their close cooperation with people. The major focus in this regard
is to enable a robot to execute tasks while communicating with a user, also in the
context of other robots operating in the same human environment. Such everyday human
environments may be dynamic and complex like shopping centres and airports. Many
current projects (Cogniron, PapeRo, etc.) design and develop personal or companion
robots, operating in close interaction with a user at home, i.e., in a small and
static environment. A major challenge of CommRob is to demonstrate that companion
robots can perform services efficiently and safely in a complex and cluttered dynamic
environment, shared by other humans and other robots.
To share such an environment with humans and to cooperate with them requires certain
communication abilities from the robot, but also from the humans. For an introduction
of robots in everyday human environments it will not be possible to train all the
humans involved. Based on this assumption, we postulate that the robot will have
to possess certain communication abilities like humans. It must be intuitive for
humans without special training to communicate with such a robot, e.g., by approaching
it, by touching it or via simplified speech. To share such an environment with other
robots as well, even complicates matters further for a given
robot. We assume that all the robots in such an environment will have to possess
the same communication abilities. This may facilitate robot-robot communication
on the same basis as human-robot communication. Therefore, we will pursue a unified
communication approach. In addition, everyday human environments are dynamic and
will are challenging in robotics. To share such environments, advanced behaviours
of robots are required. We will especially address issues of moving safely in a
dynamic environment, i.e. how to avoid dynamic obstacles,
how to perform efficient self-localisation, to support users or cooperate with other
robots. We will study these issues with a personal robot in mind that will primarily
perform multimodal perception and interpretation to communicate with its current
user. This robot will also have to communicate with other robots and interact with
other humans sharing the same physical space.
The project objectives may be summarily listed as follows:
- high-level multimodal communication with and among robots.
- human - robot communication patterns for service robots
- specified as multimodal dialogue models according to a discourse metamodel
- evaluated using robot prototypes
- communication between robots based on the same discourse metamodel used for human-robot communication
- human - robot communication patterns for service robots
- advanced behaviour of robots in everyday human environments
- User-Robot (U/R) interaction modalities in human-centred public areas
- prototype robot trolleys used in supermarkets, airports, etc
- secondary function as a walking aid
