Methodology for Coping with Uncertain Information Contained in Natural Language Instructions in a Robotic System

Abstract

Intelligent service robots are currently being developed to provide services and assistance in different sectors including domestic and household context. Typically, the service tasks of a domestic service robot involve direct interaction with humans. Humans typically express their ideas through voice communication. However, communication through natural language is imprecise because it tends to contain uncertain and unknown information. Therefore, understanding uncertain terms contained in natural language is a crucial capability that an intelligent service robot should possess. Hence, this project which is named as IntelBot is aimed at developing a methodology to cope with uncertain and unknown words contained in a natural language command given to a domestic service robot. In brief, the proposed system can interpret uncertain commands related to speed such as “go very fast” and the uncertain commands related to time such as “go later”. Additionally, if the robot is instructed to identify an object which is regarded to be unknown, as an example “cup" it can interpret and identify that particular object. And for the entire system, a user-friendly interface is developed for the easy control of the robot and the demonstration of the functionalities.