Eric Chown

Prototypes, Location, and Associative Networks (PLAN): Towards a Unified Theory of Cognitive Mapping

ed. Tour, on the other hand, does not have a global overview that can quickly yield the relationships between distant landmarks.

Tracing Recurrent Activity in Cognitive Elements (TRACE): a Model of Temporal Dynamics in a Cell Assembly

Abstract Hebbs introduction of the cell assembly concept marks the beginning of modern connectionism, yet its implications remain largely unexplored and its potential unexploited. Lately, however, promising efforts have been made to utilize recurrent connections, suggesting the timeliness of a re-examination of the cell assembly as a key element in a cognitive connectionism. Our approach emphasizes the psychological functions of activity in a cell assembly. This provides an opportunity to explore the dynamic behavior of the cell assembly considered as a continuous system, an important topic that we feel has not been given sufficient attention. A step-by-step analysis leads to an identification of characteristic temporal patterns and of necessary control systems. Each step of this analysis leads to a corresponding building block in a set of emerging equations. A series of experiments is then described that explore the implications of the theoretically derived equations in term of the time course of activi...

Omnidirectional walking using ZMP and preview control for the NAO humanoid robot

Fast-paced dynamic environments like robot soccer require highly responsive and dynamic locomotion. We present an implementation of an omnidirectional ZMP-based walk engine for the Nao robot. Using a simple inverted pendulum model, a preview controller generates dynamically balanced center of mass trajectories. To enable path planning, we introduce a system of global and egocentric coordinate frames to define step placement. These coordinate frames allow translation of the CoM trajectory, given by the preview controller, into leg actions. Walk direction can be changed quickly to suit a dynamic environment by adjusting the future step pattern.

RoboCup 2010: robot soccer world cup XIV

Entropy-Based Active Vision for a Humanoid Soccer Robot.- A Realistic Simulation Tool for Testing Face Recognition Systems under Real-World Conditions.- Thermal Face Recognition Using Local Interest Points and Descriptors for HRI Applications.- On Progress in RoboCup: The Simulation League Showcase.- Odometry Correction for Humanoid Robots Using Optical Sensors.- SSL-Humanoid: RoboCup Soccer Using Humanoid Robots under the Global Vision.- Localization with Non-unique Landmark Observations.- MR-Simulator: A Simulator for the Mixed Reality Competition of RoboCup.- Learning Footstep Prediction from Motion Capture Kicking a Ball - Modeling Complex Dynamic Motions for Humanoid Robots.- Towards Semantic Scene Analysis with Time-of-Flight Cameras.- Providing Ground-Truth Data for the Nao Robot.- Optimizing Particle Filter Parameters for Self-localization.- Improving People Awareness of Service Robots by Semantic Scene Knowledge.- An Evaluation of Open Source SURF Implementations.- A Semantic World Model for Urban Search and Rescue Based on Heterogeneous Sensors.- Improving Biped Walk Stability Using Real-Time Corrective Human Feedback.- A Review of Shape Memory Alloy Actuators in Robotics.- Biologically Inspired Mobile Robot Control Robust to Hardware Failures and Sensor Noise.- TopLeague & Bundesliga Manager New Generation Online Soccer Games.- Human vs. Robotic Soccer: How Far Are They? A Statistical Comparison.- Learning Powerful Kicks on the Aibo ERS-7: The Quest for a Striker.- Real-Time Active Vision by Entropy Minimization Applied to Localization.- Multi-agent Behavior Composition through Adaptable Software Architectures and Tangible Interfaces.- A Novel Real-Time Local Visual Feature for Omnidirectional Vision Based on FAST and LBP.- Mixed 2D/3D Perception for Autonomous Robots in Unstructured Environments.- Hierarchical Multi-robot Coordination.- Biped Walking Using Coronal and Sagittal Movements Based on Truncated Fourier Series.- Realistic Simulation of Laser Range Finder Behavior in a Smoky Environment.- Cooperative Localization Based on Visually Shared Objects.- Parameter Optimization of a Signal-Based Omni-Directional Biped Locomotion Using Evolutionary Strategies.- Designing Effective Humanoid Soccer Goalies.- A Supporter Behavior for Soccer Playing Humanoid Robots.- Utilizing the Structure of Field Lines for Efficient Soccer Robot Localization.- Robot Detection with a Cascade of Boosted Classifiers Based on Haar-Like Features.- LearnPNP: A Tool for Learning Agent Behaviors.

An architecture for emotional decision-making agents

Our research focuses on complex agents that are capable of interacting with their environments in ways that are increasingly similar to individual humans. In this article we describe a cognitive architecture for an interactive decision-making agent with emotions. The primary goal of this work is to make the decision-making process of complex agents more realistic with regard to the behavior moderators, including emotional factors that affect humans. Instead of uniform agents that rely entirely on a deterministic body of expertise to make their decisions, the decision making process of our agents will vary according to select emotional factors affecting the agent as well as the agents parameterized emotional profile. The premise of this model is that emotions serve as a kind of automatic assessment system that can guide or otherwise influence the more deliberative decision making process. The primary components of this emotional system are pleasure/pain and clarity/confusion subsystems that differentiate between positive and negative states. These, in turn, feed into an arousal system that interfaces with the decision-making system. We are testing our model using synthetic special-forces agents in a reconnaissance simulation.

Making predictions in an uncertain world: environmental structure and cognitive maps

This article examines the relationship between environmental and cognitive structure. One of the key tasks for any agent interacting in the real world is the management of uncertainty; be cause of this the cognitive structures which interact with real environments, such as would be used in navigation, must effectively cope with the uncertainty inherent in a constantly changing world. Despite this uncertainty, however, real environments usually afford structure that can be effectively exploited by organisms. The article examines environmental characteristics and struc tures that enable humans to survive and thrive in a wide range of real environments. The rela tionsnip between these characteristics and structures, uncertainty, and cognitive structure is ex plored in the context of PLAN, a proposed model of human cognitive mapping, and R-PLAN, a version of PLAN that has been instantiated on an actual mobile robot. An examination of these models helps to provide insight into environmental characteristics which impact human perfor mance on tasks which require interaction with the world.

Learning Cognitive Maps: Finding Useful Structure in an Uncertain World

In this chapter we will describe the central mechanisms that influence how people learn about large-scale space. We will focus particularly on how these mechanisms enable people to effectively cope with both the uncertainty inherent in a constantly changing world and also with the high information content of natural environments. The major lessons are that humans get by with a “less is more” approach to building structure, and that they are able to quickly adapt to environmental changes thanks to a range of general purpose mechanisms. By looking at abstract principles, instead of concrete implementation details, it is shown that the study of human learning can provide valuable lessons for robotics. Finally, these issues are discussed in the context of an implementation on a mobile robot.

Reverberation reconsidered: On the path to cognitive theory

Amits work addresses a critical issue in cognitive science: the structure of neural representations. The use of Hebbian cell assemblies is a positive step, and we now need to consider its role in a larger cognitive theory. When considering the dynamics of a system built out of attractors, a more limited version of reverberation becomes necessary.

RoboGrams: A Lightweight Message Passing Architecture for RoboCup Soccer

RoboGrams is a lightweight and efficient message passing architecture that we designed for the RoboCup domain and that has been successfully used by the Northern Bites SPL team. This unique architecture provides a framework for separating code into strongly decoupled modules, which are combined into configurable dataflow graphs. We present several different architecture types and preexisting message passing implementations, but among all of these, we contend that RoboGrams’ features make it particularly well suited for use in RoboCup. As a success story, we describe the Northern Bites’ use of RoboGrams and the benefits it has provided to a single team, but we also suggest that it could help SPL teams collaborate in the future.

The Standard Platform League

The Standard Platform League is unique among RoboCup soccer leagues for its focus on software. Since all teams compete using the same hardware (a standard robotic platform), success is predicated on software quality, and the shared hardware makes quality judgments simpler and more objective. Growing out a league based on the Sony AIBO quadruped robots, the league has constantly evolved while moving ever closer to playing by human rules, and currently features the Aldebaran NAO humanoid robots. The hallmark of the league has been a focus on individual agents’ skills, such as perception, localization, and motion, at the expense of more team-oriented skills, such as positioning and passing. The league has begun to address this deficiency with the creation of the Drop-in Challenge, where robots from multiple teams will work together. This new focus should force teams to work on multi-agent coordination in more abstract and general terms and promises to create fruitful new lines of research.