From tele-operation to cognition based tele-interaction

The era of general purpose multi-tasking service robots is beginning. One of the fundamental questions in their development is how we can get them to work efficiently in the same environment with and under the command of the average user. The answer-not an easy one-is in the development of user interfaces, which should be able to transmit the will of the user to the robot in a simple but effective way preferably using means that are natural to humans. The goal of the research presented in this paper is to introduce one such interface concept, which is based on exchanging cognitive information between the robot and the user, both present in the same environment. The information is exchanged through a virtual world called "common presence". A multi-tasking humanoid outdoor robot, called WorkPartner, is used to demonstrate the methodology and interface principle. The interface is designed to support learning and continuous cooperation with the human user in various outdoors work tasks. Natural human communication methods, such as speech and gestures, are promoted in order to ease the user's load. The additional interface hardware is also designed to be as natural to human cognition as possible. All methods and hardware presented have been tested with the WorkPartner robot.