Collaborative Robots Learning Spatial Language for Picking and Placing Objects on a Table

A shared understanding of language will assist natural interactions between humans and artificial agents or robots undertaking collaborative tasks. An important domain for collaborative armed robots is interacting with humans and objects on a table, for example, picking, placing, or handing over a variety of objects. Such tasks combine object representation and movement planning in the geometric domain with abstract reasoning about symbolic spatial representations. This paper presents an initial study in which a human partner teaches the robot words for spatial relationships by providing exemplars and indicating where words may be used over the surface. This study demonstrates how robots can be taught the words required for these tasks in a quick and simple manner that allows the concepts to be generalizable over different surfaces, objects, and object placements.