Education
Cognitive Robotics
We are working on extending Tekkotsu to
support higher level abstractions for robot programming. We
call our approach "cognitive robotics" because it draws inspiration
from ideas in cognitive science, such as Ullman's notion of "visual
routines", Paivio's "dual coding theory", and Gibson's concept of
"affordances".
Cognitive robotics makes no strong theoretical claims, but instead focuses on
developing technology that actually works, on real robots, with their
inherent physical constraints and sensory limitations.
Tekkotsu's high level primitives
form the basis of a new Cognitive
Robotics course offered at Carnegie Mellon in January 2006, and
since then at other schools as well.
Visit
Cognitive Robotics Course Website
Some recent work:
Our initial efforts are described in some brief abstracts:
- Teaching Cognitive Robotics with Tekkotsu (2007, local:PDF)
David S. Touretzky, Ethan J. Tira-Thompson, and Andrew B. Williams
Workshop given at SIGCSE (38th Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education), March 7, 2007, Covington Kentucky
- Tekkotsu:
A framework
for AIBO cognitive robotics (2005, local: PDF)
David S. Touretzky and Ethan J. Tira-Thompson
Proceedings of the Twentieth
National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-05). Menlo
Park, CA: AAAI Press.
- Tekkotsu:
Cognitive Robotics on the Sony AIBO (2004, local: PDF)
Ethan J. Tira-Thompson, Neil S. Halelamien, Jordan J.
Wales, and David S. Touretzky
Abstract for poster at International
Conference on Cognitive Modelling,
July 31, 2004, Pittsburgh, PA
- Cognitive Primitives for Mobile Robots
(2004, local: PDF)
Ethan J. Tira-Thompson, Neil S. Halelamien, Jordan J.
Wales, and David S. Touretzky
Abstract for presentation at AAAI Fall
Symposium 2004 "The Intersection of Cognitive Science and Robotics:
From Interfaces to Intelligence", October 23, 2004 at Hyatt Regency
Crystal City, Washington D.C.
- Robot Playpen Construction Guide - a good development environment can protect your hardware investment and simplify some perceptual issues.
More detail is given in Neil Halelamien's senior honors thesis at Carnegie Mellon. Emre Ugur at Middle East Technical University (Ankara, Turkey) has compiled a very good review of the literature on use of "affordances" in cognitive robotics.
Course Websites:
Notes
Implementing Segmented Vision
using Tekkotsu (2004) ( .pdf)
Shawn Turner
Distributed to Spring 2004 class of
CSI 660/445, University at Albany
Writing Finite State Automata in
Tekkotsu (2004) ( .pdf)
Shawn Turner
Distributed to Spring 2004 class of
CSI 660/445, University at Albany
Introduction to Behaviors
using Tekkotsu (2004) ( .pdf)
Shawn Turner
Distributed to Spring 2004 class of
CSI 660/445, University at Albany
Additional Links
Tekkotsu has been used for research at a variety of institutions: Other AIBO-related links:
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