HARMONIC: Cognitive and Control Collaboration in Human-Robotic Teams

Abstract

This paper describes HARMONIC, a cognitive-robotic architecture that integrates the OntoAgent cognitive framework with general-purpose robot control systems applied to human-robot teaming (HRT). HARMONIC incorporates metacognition, meaningful natural language communication, and explainability capabilities required for developing mutual trust in HRT. Through simulation experiments involving a joint search task performed by a heterogeneous team of two HARMONIC-based robots and a human operator, we demonstrate heterogeneous robots that coordinate their actions, adapt to complex scenarios, and engage in natural human-robot communication. Evaluation results show that HARMONIC-based robots can reason about plans, goals, and team member attitudes while providing clear explanations for their decisions, which are essential requirements for realistic human-robot teaming.