US 6,650,965 B2 · Robot apparatus and behavior deciding method

Abstract

A behavior decision system (70) includes a perceptual information acquisition unit (90) which acquires a cause factor being external or internal information acquired by a CCD camera (20), distance sensor (22), microphone (23) or the like and which influences a behavior and a motivational information acquisition unit (81) which acquires an occurrence tendency of a behavior influenced by the cause factor based on the cause factor from the perceptual information acquisition unit (90), a behavior selecting processor (82) which compares occurrence tendencies corresponding to two or more behaviors, acquired by the perceptual information acquisition unit (90) and motivational information acquisition unit (81) and belonging to the same group, to thereby select one of the behaviors, and an output semantics converter module (68) which controls moving parts based on the behavior selected by the behavior selecting processor (82) for expressing the selected behavior. With the behavior decision system, there can be provided a robot having an improved likeness to a living thing or a creature and showing a more similar behavior to that of an animal.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A robot apparatus whose moving parts are controlled to make the robotic device behave expressively, the device comprising:

means for detecting external or internal information;
means for acquiring a cause factor influencing the behavior from the external or internal information detected by the information detecting-means;
means for acquiring an occurrence tendency of the cause factor-influenced behavior based on the cause factor acquired by the cause factor acquiring means;
means for making a comparison among occurrence tendencies of two or more behaviors, acquired by the occurrence tendency acquiring means and belonging to the same group;
means for selecting one of the behaviors based on the result of the occurrence tendency comparison made by the occurrence tendency comparing means;
and
means for controlling the moving parts based on the behavior selected by the behavior selecting means to have the robot apparatus express the selected behavior;
wherein the occurrence tendency of the behavior selected by the behavior selecting means being varied adaptively to the cause factor which is variable due to the actual occurrence of the behavior;
and
wherein a set of behaviors are organized in the form of a hierarchical structure such that a number of low-order behaviors are associated with a high-order behavior.

7 more elements

A robot apparatus whose moving parts are controlled to make the robotic device behave expressively, the device comprising:

means for detecting external or internal information;
means for acquiring a cause factor influencing the behavior from the external or internal information detected by the information detecting-means;
means for acquiring an occurrence tendency of the cause factor-influenced behavior based on the cause factor acquired by the cause factor acquiring means;
means for making a comparison among occurrence tendencies of two or more behaviors, acquired by the occurrence tendency acquiring means and belonging to the same group;
means for selecting one of the behaviors based on the result of the occurrence tendency comparison made by the occurrence tendency comparing means;
means for controlling the moving parts based on the behavior selected by the behavior selecting means to have the robot apparatus express the selected behavior;
wherein the occurrence tendency of the behavior selected by the behavior selecting means is varied adaptively to the cause factor which is variable due to the actual occurrence of the behavior;
a behavior selection system in which a set of behaviors are organized in the form of a hierarchical structure, a set of low-order behaviors belonging to the same group indicating concrete behaviors of high-order behavior, and wherein:
the occurrence tendency comparing means compares occurrence tendencies of the set of low-order behaviors in the group corresponding to the high-order behavior;
the behavior selecting means selects a low-order behavior based on the result of the occurrence tendency comparison by the occurrence tendency comparing means;
and
when the behavior selected by the behavior selecting means is a lowest-order one, the moving part controlling means controls the moving parts based on the lowest-order behavior.

9 more elements

A method for deciding the behavior of a robot apparatus whose moving parts are controlled to have the robot apparatus behave expressively, the method comprising the steps of:

detecting external or internal information of the robot by an information detecting-means;
acquiring a cause factor influencing the behavior from the external or internal information detected in the information detecting step;
acquiring an occurrence tendency of the cause factor-influenced behavior based on the cause factor acquired in the cause factor acquiring step;
making a comparison among occurrence tendencies of two or more behaviors, acquired in the occurrence tendency acquiring step and belonging to the same group;
selecting one of the behaviors based on the result of the occurrence tendency comparison made in the occurrence tendency comparing step;
and
controlling the moving parts based on the behavior selected in the behavior selecting step to have the robot apparatus express the selected behavior;
wherein the occurrence tendency of the behavior selected in the behavior selecting step being varied adaptively to the cause factor which is variable due to the actual occurrence of the behavior;
and
wherein a set of behaviors are organized in the form of a hierarchical structure such that a number of low-order behaviors are associated with a high-order behavior.