Development of a Cognitive Robot Powered by the Autonomous Learning Engine

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A cognitive robot (CR) is an emerging technology of humanoid robots that is capable of autonomous learning and reasoning mimicking the human brain. The intelligent abilities of traditional imperative robots are based on preloaded stored-program-control technologies. This research program extends imperative robots to a CR powered by cognitive computing and autonomous learning technologies. The short-term objectives are to build a novel CR and to develop the technologies for autonomous robot learning. The long-term objectives are to mature the technology towards a novel cognitive computer and to transfer advanced CR technologies to the industries via partners of my laboratory such as IBM, Oracle, AAI, iCore, and TRLabs. This research program is organized in three coherent phases. Phase 1 designs the cognitive architecture and autonomous functions of CR, which are rigorously modeled by concept algebra. Phase 2 develops the autonomous learning engine of CR using a novel recursive process of concept, sentence, and article learning from the bottom up. Phase 3 builds the CR on an industrial platform such as Honda's Asimo and AAI's e-Puck robots. The CR will be validated by system testing and simulations. Pilot studies have demonstrated encouraging results towards the implementation of the CR. The novelty of this research is to develop a new type of CR that extends the current imperative robots to autonomous ones with cognitive learning ability. This research leads not only to the maturity of CR applications in the industry, but also to theoretical advances in cognitive computers, robotics, and denotational mathematics. The anticipated impact of this research is that CRs can learn by mimicking the brain. They can also transfer learnt knowledge to peer CRs with compatible knowledge models. CRs will enhance a wide range of industrial applications such as manufacturing automation systems, unmanned space systems, software agents, semantic search engines, advanced health-care systems, and smart home facilities.