Cognitive Map Architecture Facilitation of Human–Robot Interaction in Humanoid Robots

ion Certain components serve as intermediaries between high-level decision components and low-level robot behavior. Specifically, they transform high-level directives to low-level expressions of behavior. The Task Matrix allows high-level symbolic commands to be transformed into physically realizable actions. The Multimodal Communication component takes symbolic utterances and coordinates both speech and gestures. Superficially, this role seems similar to the executive layer in layered robot architectures like 3T. However, in our architecture the entire layer has been encapsulated and partitioned into several different components with clear responsibilities. This modularity allows these behaviors to be managed and maintained separately without refactoring other parts of the architecture. For example in the Task Matrix, by employing a plug-in based mechanism for expanding the number of tasks, and providing access to all tasks through a single component interface, a cleaner mechanism for dynamically adding and removing tasks is achieved. If the robot’s hardware or joint configuration is modified, changes only need be made in the Task Matrix while keeping the rest of the system untouched. The Multimodal Communication module separates the content in the application from the style in which that content is expressed during communication. Any changes done in this component will result in immediately changed behavior in all applications that use it.