BWIBots: A platform for bridging the gap between AI and human–robot interaction research

Piyush Khandelwal, Shiqi Zhang, Jivko Sinapov, Matteo Leonetti, Jesse Thomason, Fangkai Yang, Ilaria Gori, Maxwell Svetlik, Priyanka Khante, Vladimir Lifschitz, J. K. Aggarwal, Raymond Mooney (+1 others)
2017 The international journal of robotics research  
Recent progress in both Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics have enabled the development of general purpose robot platforms that are capable of executing a wide variety of complex, temporally extended service tasks in open environments. This article introduces a novel, custom-designed multi-robot platform for research on AI, robotics, and especially Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) for service robots. Called BWIBots, the robots were designed as a part of the Building-Wide Intelligence (BWI)
more » ... roject at the University of Texas at Austin. The article begins with a description of, and justification for, the hardware and software design decisions underlying the BWIBots, with the aim of informing the design of such platforms in the future. It then proceeds to present an overview of various research contributions that have enabled the BWIBots to better (i) execute action sequences to complete user requests, (ii) efficiently ask questions to resolve user requests, (iii) understand human commands given in natural language, and (iv) understand human intention from afar. The article concludes with a look forward towards future research opportunities and applications enabled by the BWIBot platform. Prepared using sagej.cls [Version: 2015/06/09 v1.01] * Defeasible reasoning allows a planner to draw tentative conclusions which can be retracted based on further evidence. Prepared using sagej.cls † The RMP 50 is no longer available for sale. ‡ 80/20 framing has already been used on other research robots such as the Cobot (Veloso et al. 2015) § Parts larger than 20"x12" were split to fit on the cutting bed, and then joined together using joining plates from 80/20 Inc. Prepared using sagej.cls
doi:10.1177/0278364916688949 fatcat:yqqm35v7lngxri5ef5fn7butam