Achieving common ground under asymmetric agency and social sentience in communication for human-robot teaming

Abstract

In a human-robot team, actors need to collaborate at different levels to make things work. They work together on performing tasks, to achieve their mission. But, beyond this taskwork, there is the team-work per se. The team needs to coordinate its social dynamics, the assignment of roles and responsibilities, the building up and maintaining of a shared understanding of what the mission is about and what the environment operated in is like. Communication is key, particularly at the level of team-work. This gives rise to particular challenges for human-robot interaction, among others the formation of a common ground. The paper discusses a framework for situated dialogue as part of collaborative activity, and shows how some of the challenges for building and maintaining common ground can be dealt with.