Cognitive robotics
Encyclopedia
a robot is a robot device that is built from inanimate matter. Its behavior in response to the environment is deterministic, based on how the robot was designed. Cognition
is the process of acquiring and using knowledge about the world for goal-oriented purposes, such as survival. Cognitive robotics is then the branch of robotics that is concerned with endowing the robot with intelligent behavior by providing the robot with a processing architecture that will allow it to learn and reason about how to behave in response to complex goals in a complex world. While traditional cognitive modeling approaches have assumed symbolic coding schemes as a means for depicting the world, translating the world into these kinds of symbolic representations has proven to be problematic if not untenable. Perception
and action
and the notion of symbolic representation are therefore core issues to be addressed in cognitive robotics.
Cognitive robotics views animal cognition as a starting point for the development of robotic information processing, as opposed to more traditional Artificial Intelligence
techniques. Target robotic cognitive capabilities include perception processing, attention allocation, anticipation, planning, complex motor coordination, reasoning about other agents and perhaps even about their own mental states. Robotic cognition embodies the behavior of intelligent agent
s in the physical world (or a virtual world, in the case of simulated cognitive robotics). Ultimately the robot must be able to act in the real world.
A cognitive robot should exhibit:
One of the learning techniques that are used for robots is learning by imitation: the robot, provided with all the sensors and physical hardware needed to perform a human task, is monitoring the human performing a task, and then the robot tries to imitate the same movements that the human performed in order to achieve the task. Using its sensors, the robot should be able to create a three-dimensional image of the environment, and to recognize the objects in that image. A major challenge is hence to interpret the scene, and to understand what objects are needed in the task and which are not.
A more complex learning approach is autonomous knowledge acquisition: the robot now uses its sensors and its knowledge about the physical properties of the world, and is then left to explore the environment on its own. One of the terminologies of this behavior is called motor babbling
. The idea of this approach is to let the robot discover its capabilities on its own.
Some researchers in cognitive robotics have begun using architectures such as (ACT-R
and Soar (cognitive architecture)
) as a basis of their cognitive robotics programs. These architectures have been successfully used to simulate operator performance and human performance when modeling laboratory data. The idea is to extend these architectures to handle real-world sensory input as that input continuously unfolds through time.
Some of the fundamental questions to still be answered in cognitive robotics are:
Cognition
In science, cognition refers to mental processes. These processes include attention, remembering, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions. Cognition is studied in various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science...
is the process of acquiring and using knowledge about the world for goal-oriented purposes, such as survival. Cognitive robotics is then the branch of robotics that is concerned with endowing the robot with intelligent behavior by providing the robot with a processing architecture that will allow it to learn and reason about how to behave in response to complex goals in a complex world. While traditional cognitive modeling approaches have assumed symbolic coding schemes as a means for depicting the world, translating the world into these kinds of symbolic representations has proven to be problematic if not untenable. Perception
Philosophy of perception
The philosophy of perception is concerned with the nature of perceptual experience and the status of perceptual data, in particular how they relate to beliefs about, or knowledge of, the world. Any explicit account of perception requires a commitment to one of a variety of ontological or...
and action
Motor cognition
The concept of motor cognition grasps the notion that cognition is embodied in action, and that the motor system participates in what is usually considered as mental processing, including those involved in social interaction...
and the notion of symbolic representation are therefore core issues to be addressed in cognitive robotics.
Cognitive robotics views animal cognition as a starting point for the development of robotic information processing, as opposed to more traditional Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
techniques. Target robotic cognitive capabilities include perception processing, attention allocation, anticipation, planning, complex motor coordination, reasoning about other agents and perhaps even about their own mental states. Robotic cognition embodies the behavior of intelligent agent
Intelligent agent
In artificial intelligence, an intelligent agent is an autonomous entity which observes through sensors and acts upon an environment using actuators and directs its activity towards achieving goals . Intelligent agents may also learn or use knowledge to achieve their goals...
s in the physical world (or a virtual world, in the case of simulated cognitive robotics). Ultimately the robot must be able to act in the real world.
A cognitive robot should exhibit:
- informational attitudes such as knowledgeKnowledgeKnowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...
and beliefs - motivational attitudes such as preferencePreference-Definitions in different disciplines:The term “preferences” is used in a variety of related, but not identical, ways in the scientific literature. This makes it necessary to make explicit the sense in which the term is used in different social sciences....
s and goals - cognitive capabilities such as revising mental attitudes, reasoning, decision makingDecision makingDecision making can be regarded as the mental processes resulting in the selection of a course of action among several alternative scenarios. Every decision making process produces a final choice. The output can be an action or an opinion of choice.- Overview :Human performance in decision terms...
, planningPlanningPlanning in organizations and public policy is both the organizational process of creating and maintaining a plan; and the psychological process of thinking about the activities required to create a desired goal on some scale. As such, it is a fundamental property of intelligent behavior...
, as well as observing and communicating - physical capabilities to move in the physical world, and to interact safely with objects in that world, including manipulation of these objects
One of the learning techniques that are used for robots is learning by imitation: the robot, provided with all the sensors and physical hardware needed to perform a human task, is monitoring the human performing a task, and then the robot tries to imitate the same movements that the human performed in order to achieve the task. Using its sensors, the robot should be able to create a three-dimensional image of the environment, and to recognize the objects in that image. A major challenge is hence to interpret the scene, and to understand what objects are needed in the task and which are not.
A more complex learning approach is autonomous knowledge acquisition: the robot now uses its sensors and its knowledge about the physical properties of the world, and is then left to explore the environment on its own. One of the terminologies of this behavior is called motor babbling
Motor babbling
Motor babbling , an aspect that a robotic system could effectively develop an internal model of itself body and the external environment autonomously by itself learning within the sensory-motor. It is a recent methodology in respect to complicated robotic system such as humanoid robot, etc...
. The idea of this approach is to let the robot discover its capabilities on its own.
Some researchers in cognitive robotics have begun using architectures such as (ACT-R
ACT-R
ACT-R is a cognitive architecture mainly developed by John Robert Anderson at Carnegie Mellon University. Like any cognitive architecture, ACT-R aims to define the basic and irreducible cognitive and perceptual operations that enable the human mind....
and Soar (cognitive architecture)
Soar (cognitive architecture)
Soar is a symbolic cognitive architecture, created by John Laird, Allen Newell, and Paul Rosenbloom at Carnegie Mellon University, now maintained by John Laird's research group at the University of Michigan. It is both a view of what cognition is and an implementation of that view through a...
) as a basis of their cognitive robotics programs. These architectures have been successfully used to simulate operator performance and human performance when modeling laboratory data. The idea is to extend these architectures to handle real-world sensory input as that input continuously unfolds through time.
Some of the fundamental questions to still be answered in cognitive robotics are:
- How much human programming should or can be involved to support the learning processes?
- How can one quantify progress? Some of the adopted ways is the reward and punishment. But what kind of reward and what kind of punishment? In humans, when teaching a little infant for example, the reward would be a chocolate or some encouragement, and the punishment will have many ways. But what is the effective way with robots?
See also
- Intelligent agentIntelligent agentIn artificial intelligence, an intelligent agent is an autonomous entity which observes through sensors and acts upon an environment using actuators and directs its activity towards achieving goals . Intelligent agents may also learn or use knowledge to achieve their goals...
- Cognitive scienceCognitive scienceCognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...
- CyberneticsCyberneticsCybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...
- Developmental roboticsDevelopmental roboticsDevelopmental Robotics , sometimes called epigenetic robotics, is a methodology that uses metaphors from neural development and developmental psychology to develop the mind for autonomous robots. The focus is on a single or multiple robots going through stages of autonomous mental development...
- Embodied cognitive scienceEmbodied cognitive scienceEmbodied Cognitive Science is an interdisciplinary field of research, the aim of which is to explain the mechanisms underlying intelligent behavior...
- Epigenetic roboticsDevelopmental roboticsDevelopmental Robotics , sometimes called epigenetic robotics, is a methodology that uses metaphors from neural development and developmental psychology to develop the mind for autonomous robots. The focus is on a single or multiple robots going through stages of autonomous mental development...
- Evolutionary roboticsEvolutionary roboticsEvolutionary robotics is a methodology that uses evolutionary computation to develop controllers for autonomous robots. Algorithms in ER frequently operate on populations of candidate controllers, initially selected from some distribution. This population is then repeatedly modified according to...
- Hybrid intelligent systemHybrid intelligent systemHybrid intelligent system denotes a software system which employs, in parallel, a combination of methods and techniques from artificial intelligence subfields as:* Neuro-fuzzy systems* hybrid connectionist-symbolic models* Fuzzy expert systems...
- Intelligent controlIntelligent controlIntelligent control is a class of control techniques, that use various AI computing approaches like neural networks, Bayesian probability, fuzzy logic, machine learning, evolutionary computation and genetic algorithms.- Overview :...