US 8,406,925 B2 · Panoramic attention for humanoid robots

Abstract

A robot using less storage and computational resources to embody panoramic attention. The robot includes a panoramic attention module with multiple levels that are hierarchically structured to process different levels of information. The top-level of the panoramic attention module receives information about entities detected from the environment of the robot and maps the entities to a panoramic map maintained by the robot. By mapping and storing high-level entity information instead of low-level sensory information in the panoramic map, the amount of storage and computation resources for panoramic attention can be reduced significantly. Further, the mapping and storing of high-level entity information in the panoramic map also facilitates consistent and logical processing of different conceptual levels of information.

Claims24

Dependent claims

A method of operating a robot, comprising:

extracting features from a sensor signal responsive to receiving the sensor signal from a sensor;
determining one or more portions of the sensor signal likely to include one or more entities based on the extracted features;
detecting one or more entities in the sensor signal by processing the one or more portions of the sensor signal;
generating entity information indicating characteristics of each of the detected entities;
determining a location of each of the detected entities relative to the robot in a panoramic map at least partially surrounding the robot based on the entity information, the location of each of the detected entities represented by a coordinate in the panoramic map;
and
controlling the robot to perform an action based on the detected entities and the location determined for each of the detected entities.

4 more elements

A robot comprising:

an attention module comprising,
a low-level sub-module configured to extract features from a sensor signal responsive to receiving the sensor signal from a sensor;
a mid-level sub-module configured to:
determine one or more portions of the sensor signal likely to include one or more entities based on the extracted features,
detect one or more entities in the sensor signal by processing the one or more portions of the sensor signal;
and
generate entity information indicating characteristics of each of the one or more detected entities;
and
a top-level sub-module configured to determine a location of each of the one or more detected entities relative to the robot;
and map the detected entities to locations in a panoramic map at least partially surrounding the robot based on the entity information, the location of each of the detected entities represented by a coordinate in the panoramic map;
and
a behavior module configured to control the robot to perform an action based on the detected entities and the determined location for each of the detected entities.

9 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Panoramic attention for humanoid robots

Life of this patent

Panoramic attention for humanoid robots

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims24