Perception and Perspective in Robotics

Abstract

To a robot, the world is a sea of ambiguity, in which it will sink or swim depending on the robustness of its perceptual abilities.But robust machine perception has proven difficult to achieve.This paper argues that robots must be given not just particular perceptual competences, but the tools to forge those competences out of raw physical experiences.Three important tools for extending a robot's perceptual abilities whose importance have been recognized individually are related and brought together.The first is active perception, where the robot employs motor action to reliably perceive properties of the world that it otherwise could not.The second is development, where experience is used to improve perception.The third is interpersonal influences, where the robot's percepts are guided by those of an external agent.Examples are given for object segmentation, object recognition, and orientation sensitivity; initial work on action understanding is also described.