Place Concept Teaching through Sketch Map for Robot Place Perception Based on Prototype Mechanism

Nowadays, people expect robots to perceive environments in a concept-oriented way, and how to teach robots some abstract concepts becomes a new problem. Aiming at teaching robots abstract place concepts, a method using a sketch map is proposed. The method is based on a prototype mechanism, in which feature objects and qualitative spatial relationships among them are taken into account simultaneously. Two primitives used on a sketch map are defined: one is the closed curve which represents an object, and the other is the arrow which is used to assist to get the orientation of a certain object. A concept prototype is gotten through analyzing primitives on a sketch map. The analysis is divided into two parts: getting information about objects and getting the scores of spatial relationships according to certain usual relationship attributes. Finally, the method is verified by simulation, and place concept teaching can be reliably realized.