Perception As a Key Component for Cognitive Technical Systems

摘要

Cognitive capabilities such as perception, reasoning, learning, and planning turn technical systems into systems that “know what they are doing.” Starting from the human brain the Cluster of Excellence “CoTeSys” investigates cognition for technical systems such as vehicles, robots, and factories. Technical sys tems that are cognitive will be much easier to interact and cooperate with, and will be more robust, flexible, and efficient. For understanding their environment and interacting with humans the cognitive system’s most important sense is the visual one. The talk presents recent results using the visual sensor in building environ ment models, self localization of autonomous moving robots, navigation, simultaneous tracking of groups of humans and robots, face detection and evaluation of gaze direction and facial expression, and emotional communication between humans and robots.