Learning to Parse Natural Language Commands to a Robot Control System

Abstract

As robots become more ubiquitous and capable of performing complex tasks, the importance of enabling untrained users to interact with them has increased. In response, unconstrained natural-language interaction with robots has emerged as a significant research area. We discuss the problem of parsing natural language commands to actions and control structures that can be readily implemented in a robot execution system. Our approach learns a parser based on example pairs of English commands and corresponding control language expressions. We evaluate this approach in the context of following route instructions through an indoor environment, and demonstrate that our system can learn to translate English commands into sequences of desired actions, while correctly capturing the semantic intent of statements involving complex control structures. The procedural nature of our formal representation allows a robot to interpret route instructions online while moving through a previously unknown environment.