Cognitive Robotics: Robot Soccer Coaching using Spoken Language

The chapter describes our current work in developing cognitive robotics architectures in the context of robot soccer coaching using spoken language. The work exploits recent developments in cognitive science, particularly notions of grammatical constructions as form-meaning mappings in language, and notions of shared intentions as distributed plans for interaction and collaboration. We exploit social interaction by structuring communication around shared intentions that guide the interactions between human and robot. We demonstrate this approach in robot soccer coaching distinguishing among three levels of human-robot interaction. The first level is that of commanding or directing the behavior of the robot. The second level is that of interrogating or requesting a behavior explanation from the robot. The third and most advanced level is that of teaching the robot a new form of behavior. The chapter is organized as follows: (i) we explore language communication aspects between humans and robots; (ii) we analyze RoboCup soccer, in particular the fourlegged league, as cognitive platform; (iii) we describe current experiments and results in human-robot coaching in the four-legged league; and, (iv) we provide a discussion on current and future directions for this work.