Noise and the Common Sense Informatic Situation for a Mobile Robot

Abstract

Any model of the world a robot constructs on the basis of its sensor data is necessarily both incomplete, due to the robot's limited window on the world, and uncertain, due to sensor and motor noise. This paper supplies a logical account of sensor data assimilation in which such models are constructed through an abductive process which hypothesises the existence, locations, and shapes of objects. Noise is treated as a kind of non-determinism, and is dealt with by a consistency-based form of abduction. Introduction The aim of Cognitive Robotics is to design and build mobile robots based on the idea of logical representation [Lespérance, et al., 1994]. By reinstating the ideals of the Shakey project [Nilsson, 1984], Cognitive Robotics has reinvigorated a research programme that has been largely dormant for the past twenty years. This has been made possible by recent advances in the field of common sense reasoning: formalisms now exist for reasoning about action which incorporate robust ...