An architecture for cognitive human-robot integration. Application to rehabilitation robotics

Robot skills that are needed to operate completely autonomously in a real complex scenario populated by humans are still beyond the capabilities that the current robotic technology offers. In spite of that, in a variety of assistant applications where human and robot are closely tied, mobile robots can perform an effective and valuable work if humans in the surroundings (or the assisted person) would be enabled to extend the robot abilities through skills either not supported by the machine or supported in a different and (maybe) less dependable manner. To achieve that, robot and human must closely interact and collaborate at all levels of the robotic architecture, including deliberation, control and execution. This paper proposes a new robotic architecture, called ACHRIN, which supports a strong integration of the human into the robotic system in order to improve the overall performance of the robot as well as its dependability. Our human-robot integration relies to a great extend on sharing symbolic concepts of the world (cognitive integration). ACHRIN has been implemented and tested in a real rehabilitation robot: a robotic wheelchair that provides mobility to impaired or elderly people.