Agent-based Multimodal Interface for Dynamically Autonomous Mobile Robots

Abstract : Agents provide a flexible and scalable method of integrating artificial intelligence techniques on a single cohesive distributed computing system. We have designed and implemented an agent-based interface for autonomous control, and for providing web-based information retrieval, for a dynamically autonomous mobile robot. The robot implements and integrates a variety of artificial intelligence techniques including a multimodal interface that allows natural language understanding, gesture interpretation, simultaneous localization and mapbuilding, object identification and spatial reasoning. The agent-based interface augments these capabilities by providing a method of controlling the robot via the CoABS grid, and by providing the means for the robot/operator to request information available through the grid or through the web.