ICub Cognitive Architecture
- The correct title of this article is iCub Cognitive Architecture. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.
The iCub cognitive architecture is the result of a detailed design process founded on the developmental psychology and neurophysiology of humans so that it encapsulates what is currently known about the neuroscience of action, perception, and cognition. This process and the final outcome is documented in Deliverable D2.1: A Roadmap for the Development of Cognitive Capabilities in Humanoid Robots.
The architecture itself comprises a set of YARP executables, typically connected by YARP ports. Early prototypes were developed at a RobotCub project meeting at the University of Hertfordshire in July 2007 as an exercise in consolidating the software development effort of the project partners. Several subsequent versions were produced at the RobotCub Summer School 2007 VVV '07. These prototypes were developed in parallel with the Roadmap effort mentioned above. These two strands of design effort converged in the cognitive architecture shown below (version 1.0). Previous versions can be accessed via the links at the end of the page.
The immediate purpose in developing the software architecture is to create a core software infrastructure for the iCub so that it will be able to exhibit a set of target behaviours for an Experimental Investigation 1.
Modifications
- Removed the
tracker
(should be handled by attention/salience sub-system) - Removed the
face localization
(should be handled by attention/salience sub-system) - Removed the
hand localization
(should be handled by attention/salience sub-system) - Removed the
sound localization
(should be handled by salience module) - Removed the
attention selection
- Added
Exogenous Salience
andEndogenous Salience
- Added
Locomotion
- Added
Matching
- Added
Auto-associative memory
- Added
Hetero-associative episodic memory
- Added
Affective state
- Added
Action selection
Notes
- The
controlGaze -> salience -> attentionSelection
circuit is a fast retinotopic circuit. It is one of the circuits by which motoric state modulates attentional capacity. soundLocalization
at present implies simply a binaural localization of the direction of arrival of a sound, expressed in head-centric spherical coordinates. It should ultimately effect some sensori-motor capability that acts to re-orient the iCub towards a localized sound.faceLocalization
would ideally be implemented as a ‘three blob’ detection; at present it is intended to utilize an OpenCV face detector for the immediate future.Reaching -> salience -> egoSphere -> attentionSelection -> controGaze
is the primary circuit for achieving visually-guided reaching.visualSalience
andattentionSelection
are tightly-coupled.- Endogenous and exogenous salience implies salience based on internal and external events, respectively
- Gaze implies 7 DoF: head and eyes
- Locomotion paradigm is “go where you are looking”
- Reaching paradigm is “reach where you are looking”
- Gaze, reaching, and locomotion motor activities condition endogenous salience: actions condition attention and vice versa
- Auto-associative memory storage is conditioned by poor matching and high salience
- Episodic memory is defined to mean perception-action event sequence
- Episodic Memory recall:
- Event A, Event D -> sequence of intermediate events
- Event A -> Event B
- Affective state: competitive network of three motives:
- Curiosity / Distraction
- Exploration
- Social engagement
- Action selection is not a winner-take-all process: one or more actions are disinhibited
- The developmental drive is to construct an episodic memory that improves prediction
Links
The following links are to early versions of the iCub "software architecture", a design for an iCub application (i.e. a set of YARP modules) that approximated some of the elementary aspects of the iCub cognitive architecture which now supercedes them. These early versions have all now been deprecated, as has the title "software architecture" in this context. Software Architecture now refers, as it originally did, to the YARP system.
- iCub software architecture version 0.1
- iCub software architecture version 0.2
- iCub software architecture version 0.3
- iCub software architecture version 0.4
- See also the current draft iCub YARP module specifications
- iCub brain - current source code documentation