NL-based communication with firefighting robots

Firefighters put themselves in harm´s way while saving others and may even lose their lives in certain situations, such as toxic fumes, extreme heat, or inhaling smoke. In order to protect firefighters from the risks and, at the same time, to save others´ lives, firefighting and firefighter assistant robots have been developed. This paper will compare different firefighting and firefighter assistant robots and their functionalities. The main thrust of the paper, however, is to discuss the transition from tele-operated robots first to voice-operated and, eventually, to fully autonomous ones, which is where robotic intelligence resides. We will introduce HARMS, the human-agent-robot-machine-sensor collaborative effort, and explain why using natural language as the basis of their communication is not only optimal but also feasible and affordable with the Ontological Semantic Technology.