COGNIRON - the cognitive robot companion

Volltext Research Projects Summary: The objectives of COGNIRON are to study the perceptual, representational, reasoning and learning capabilities of embodied robots in human centred environments. The project will develop methods and technologies for the construction of such cognitive robots able to evolve and grow their capacities in close interaction with humans in an openended fashion. In the focus of this research endeavour is the development of a robot whose ultimate task is to serve humans as a companion in their daily life. The robot is not only considered as a readymade device but as an artificial creature, which improves its capabilities in a continuous process of acquiring new knowledge and skills. Besides the necessary functions for sensing, moving and acting, such a robot will exhibit the cognitive capacities enabling it to focus its attention, to understand the spatial and dynamic structure of its environment and to interact with it, to exhibit a social behaviour and communicate with other agents and with humans at the appropriate level of abstraction according to context.