Goals

Our research efforts target the goal of enriching our robots with the necessary cognitive capabilities in order to:

• solve complex problems by themselves and cooperating with both other robots or humans,
• learn how to identify and solve problems by watching humans or other robots,
• use tools in their activities,
• identify objects in the environment that can substitute tools and use them in their tasks.

Stages of the Project

Environment perception

In the first stage of the project we have the following goals:

• develop robust algorithms for mapping a new environment and moving between landmarks in a learnt space
• design and implement a robust solution for the coordination of two agents while performing a simple task (e.g. carrying an object)
• develop a robust algorithm to fuse audio and video data in order to recognize people

Objects and Activities

In the second stage of the project we intend to achieve the following:

• design a planning algorithm for one robot to perform complex tasks
• implement a scenario in which a robot performs a task with the help of an object
• make two agents discover a collaborative solution to a given problem (not involving objects)
• develop and implement a solution for human - robot coordination while performing a task
• identify some relevant features of objects, anticipating the tool concept abstraction

Tools

In the third stage we target the next:

• abstract the "tool" concept
• identify tools used by humans in peforming various tasks
• implement a scenario in which two robots perform a task with the help of an object

Singularity

In the last stage of the project we want to have robots able to solve complex problems together with humans and using tools or substituting tools with available objects.