Robot Object Identification Using Gesture-Guided Spatial Search
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Solution Overview
Problem
Robotics systems face challenges in disambiguating between multiple objects in their environment when a user provides a command referencing a specific object, especially when the object is out of view, leading to inaccurate identification and action execution.
Innovation Solution
The system combines speech and image/video inputs to analyze user commands, using gestures to narrow down the search region within the environment's inventory, allowing for precise identification of intended objects by restricting the search to the spatial region indicated by the user's gesture.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If the robot searches the entire inventory for the referenced object, then it can find any object regardless of location, but it cannot accurately distinguish between multiple instances of the same object type
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts spatial context information from gesture data, separating this disambiguation cue from the general object search process. By taking out the spatial region information indicated by the user's gesture and using it to filter the inventory search, the system can accurately identify the intended object among multiple instances without needing to search the entire environment.
2Measurement precision
If the robot relies only on speech commands, then the interaction is simple, but it cannot disambiguate between multiple objects when the user references a specific one
Solution Approach 1:
The system merges speech command processing with gesture recognition to create a unified object identification approach. By combining the semantic information from speech with the spatial information from gestures, the system achieves accurate object disambiguation. The merged input processing allows the robot to understand both what object the user wants and where to find it among multiple instances.
3Reliability
If the robot searches the entire inventory, then it ensures complete coverage, but the search time increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the inventory search space into multiple regions based on spatial context from gesture data. Instead of searching the entire inventory at once, the robot divides the search into smaller, gesture-defined regions. This segmentation maintains reliability by ensuring the correct region is searched while significantly reducing search time by eliminating unnecessary regions from the search process.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods, systems, and apparatus for receiving a command for controlling a robot, the command referencing an object, receiving sensor data for a portion of an environment of the robot, identifying, from the sensor data, a gesture of a human that indicates a spatial region located outside of the portion of the environment described by the sensor data, searching map data for the object, determining, based at least on searching the map data for the object referenced in the command, that the object referenced in the command is present in the spatial region, and in response to determining that the object referenced in the command is present in the spatial region, controlling the robot to perform an action with respect to the object referenced in the command.