Sarah Hardcastle Undergraduate Dissertation 2017/18

Communicating With A Virtual Robot Via Spoken Language

Supervised by R.Gaizauskas

Abstract

Controlling technology using spoken words and having them reply has been a common theme in many Sci-Fis, dating back to the 1960s with Star Trek, and possibly even before then. In media this may be to help the audience know what is going on, however the benefits this type of communication offers makes it clear to see why this has become an important field. Communicating by speech is much faster than typing, even with the most skilled typers. Users can carry out tasks on their device while not having any hands free, or even while they're on the other side of a room. Many disabled users would also be able to use devices they previously couldn't.

The goal of this project is to create a ROS package to experiment with spoken communication between a virtual robot and user. The communication will include commands for navigation and questions about the robots environment, as well as the robot asking questions or for confirmation.