Hardware and Software Structure for a Social Robot Capable of Situation Analysis

This paper discusses structuring of hardware and software for an autonomous social robot. It shows that the real-world social robot operations face the challenge of environmental variability and uncertainty of the objective parameters. Thus, a social robot must be capable of situation analysis for better autonomy. We propose a modular distributed structure of the control system. Separate modules monitor the status and control the subsystems of the robot. General coordination of subsystems is provided by the Supervisor module. For the robot to function autonomously, the Supervisor must be capable of situation analysis and its key functions: objective retrieval and analysis, situation description, configuring and strategizing the solution. The robot’s sensory inputs help acquire the objective and its parameters to describe the situation. Description relies on the database of a priori knowledge of the environment and its objects. Analysis is linked to a reduction in the uncertainty of the objective parameters and situation description. For a case study, the paper demonstrates a maze-solving strategy as affected by the situation.