Grounding Spatial Language in Mobile Robots
Speaker: Ruth Schulz, ITEE
When: 2006-08-09 12:30:00
Venue: 78-622
Host: Janet Wiles
Abstract:For mobile robots to be truly autonomous, they must be able to build
a map of their world and navigate using the map. Autonomous agents
should also be able to form concepts based on interaction with the
world and associate the symbols of language with these concepts. The
association between symbols and the representations of an agent is
grounding. Symbols must be grounded in an agent's representation of
the world to be meaningful to the agent.
A framework for investigating the grounding of spatial languages
using mobile robots is proposed. The robots are capable of building
a map of the world in real time using RatSLAM, a model of
Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping. The spatial representations
are used to form spatial concepts describing the world, which are
associated with symbols used by humans or other robots.
A set of preliminary simulations will be presented that investigate
elements of the proposed framework. These simulations provide the
building blocks for future studies, and include investigations into
recurrent neural networks, robot representations, reliability of
representations, evolving languages, and generalisation of evolved
languages. In future studies, language games will be played in small
groups of mobile robots to find languages for locations,
relationships between locations, and different types of
locations. These language games will initially be performed offline,
followed by implementation in the simulation world of the robots,
and finally in the real robots.
The overall goal of the PhD is to develop a computational model of
language in mobile robots that enables the robots to easily evolve
and learn a spatial language grounded in spatial representations of
the world. The project will result in mobile robots that can evolve
and learn a communication system to explain where and how to get
there.
Biography:http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~ruth/
Type: Ph.D confirmation
Contact:Janet Wiles, seminar host (janetw@itee.uq.edu.au)
or Guido Governatori (ITEE seminar co-ordinator)
(guido@itee.uq.edu.au)