The robot must be capable of generalizing imitated actions into different and more complex tasks. The interactions must be intuitive for the instructor. A developmental strategy allows increasingly more complex skills and competencies to be layered on top of continuously self-calibrating simpler competencies. It also organizes knowledge of the world in the same manner as that used by humans and thus contributes to intuitive understanding. We propose building software systems that exploit the embodiment , in the world, of the robots they control.
Embodiment facilitates a robot using the world as a tool for organizing and manipulating knowledge.
At the same time, just as with humans, it directs choices away from what could be done only with great difficulty and towards what can be done naturally and in keeping with the physics of the world. We propose building highly integrated software and robot systems which will maximize the efficiency and accuracy of complementary sensory and motor systems. The following accomplishments were all carried out primarily on the Kismet platform. This work was done between July 1999 and June 2000. Kismet pays attention to salient cues in the environment.