Software that will let people and robots communicate and plan difficult, complex tasks, such as dismantling a nuclear power plant, is under development at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. It will translate symbols of mathematical logic into text and vice versa, so humans and robots can share two-way communication in their own respective language.
Human-robot communication has been the subject of a lot of research for robotic tasks as widely varied as assisting in brain surgery, to helping humans assemble products on the factory floor.
Researchers at the university's School of Natural and Computing Sciences expect their technology to be used in several industries. These include unmanned exploration of hostile environments, such as the deep sea or the Martian surface; as well as more mundane tasks, such as maintaining and repairing railway lines.
Software that will let people and robots communicate to plan difficult and complex tasks, such as dismantling a nuclear power plant, is being developed at a Scottish university. (Source: Wikimedia Commons/Stefan Kühn)
In these situations, robots could become more autonomous if they could operate for long periods without continuous guidance from humans, as well as make their own decisions after processing data. The problem is, as it stands now, robots can make mistakes that aren't apparent to humans or to themselves, or do things that humans don't understand. In an operation as dangerous and complex as decommissioning a nuclear power plant, the results could be disastrous.
"Evidence shows there may be mistrust when there are no provisions to help a human to understand why an autonomous system has decided to perform a specific task, at a particular time, and in a certain way," said Dr. Wamberto Vasconcelos, senior lecturer in the Department of Computing Science, in a press release. "What we are creating is a new generation of autonomous systems, which are able to carry out a two-way communication with humans. The ability to converse with such systems will provide us with a novel tool to quickly understand, and if necessary correct, the actions of an automated system, increasing our confidence in, and the usefulness of, such systems."
To develop the autonomous robotics systems, the project will use Natural Language Generation (NLG), which translates complex information and data into simple text summaries. The university's School of Natural and Computing Sciences staff includes several NLG researchers.
In NLG, the information and data begin as symbols of mathematical logic. (Some representative logic symbols are shown in this article's headline, in no particular order.) They are automatically transformed into simple text, so that humans and robots can discuss and plan a set of tasks before the robot carries them out.
Later, when the robot is engaged in a task, the human can communicate with it using a keyboard. Humans can ask the robot questions about why it's taking certain actions or making specific decisions, and request justifications for them. Humans can also provide the robot with additional information it can integrate into its plans, suggest alternatives, and point out problems with the robot's chosen course of action.
Vasconcelos said his team hopes the systems they are developing will be applicable not only to robots, but also to mobile phones, "which can interact with a human in useful ways, which up until now haven't been explored."
The research is funded by a £1.1 million (US$1.7 million) grant from the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, a government agency that funds research and training.
Ann, what's the need of software to dismantle the nuclear power plant. I know the importance of human robot communication, but I think the developments has to be happen in other directions like disaster management and rescue operations.
Really it's just another chunk of code running a task, just like the operating system, and an environment that's dangerous for humans is the ideal place to deploy the technology.
Mydesign, I think the intent here regarding nuclear power plants refers to the robots used in dealing with the most radioactive parts. You might recall that in the Fukushima situation some robots from the US were sent in to check the affected areas so that humans would not have to. These robots carried cameras and sensors for that task.
Typically researchers will mention high value situations like this. If it works, though, the real money is always in high volume. The real payday on something like this is the cell phone market.
Ann, you know what this reminds me of? C-3PO from Star Wars. That was a robot that communicated between robots and humans. It spoke millions of languages, including many machine languages.
I agree with Tekochip; it seems like another way of translating machine algorthims into human-friendly text so data regarding the environment or instructional information can be passed back and forth. There's no spoken component to these systems, is there?? Not to say this isn't valuable or interesting, BTW.
Mydesign, the software is not used to dismantle the power plant. The software is used to help humans and robots communicate ahead of time and during such a delicate operation, to make sure everything goes right. What other kinds of developments did you have in mind?
Beth, this is text to logic symbols and back: no audio. As we mentioned, humans communicate with the robot via a keyboard (at least during the remote operation). Although the sources didn't specify, my guess is the humans see the robot's translated symbols-to-text on a screen. The big deal is being able to communicate in detail to a remote robot at a much more sophisticated level than was possible before. So instead of just being the humans' eyes and perhaps hands--or bomb zappers--like many of the military and rescue robots we've covered, this can let the humans stay at a distance. At Fukushima, all they could do was check and report back. Humans still had to go in to the high-rad area and decommission it. With this, they won't have to.
I'm a little surpised to hear that the robot's creators would be anticipating so much difficulty and confusion. The robotic driving systems developed by Google have been nearly flawless, despite the fact they have to deal with unpredictable humans. I recently read that Google cars have had only one accident after logging 250,000 miles, and that happened when a human driver decided to take the wheel.
I don't really get the point of this either. If I am understanding the article, it sounds like they expect the robot to do things that the observers would have trouble figuring out. If the algorithms are that complex, it looks like the programmers would implement logging, or some trail of breadcrumbs to discern why the robot is doing what it is doing.
I've read the same statistic you mention, Chuck, but I'd like to know more about the specific situations. Driving a car mostly consists of understandable, easily repeatable motions. Making decisions about what to do if a truck suddenly turns around in your lane and comes back at you is a very different set of problems and decision-making. I'm giving that example because it's something completely unexpected (something similar happened to me once at 60 mph in the fast lane). In any case, something completely unexpected that the remote human can't see very well--i.e., inside a Fukushima reactor--and that needs to be done right the first time requires complex, highly sophisticated decision-making skills, and very good communication between robot and remote human. The researchers think that the ability to communicate thoroughly before and during complex, dangerous tasks, like two people would, is a good idea.
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