Spatial Relations for Perceptual Anchoring

In this work we show how a mobile robot can use spatial information of objects to improve communication with humans and other devices located in an intelligent environment. In particular, this work focuses on using spatial relations to facilitate the creation of a connection between symbolic and perceptual representation that refer to the same physical object (anchoring). We extend an anchoring framework to include a set of binary spatial relations which can then be used to exchange information about objects with a human user. To illustrate the performance of the framework, a number of scenarios are presented using a mobile robot. These scenarios are a first step towards the goal of having mobile robots integrated in an intelligent environment and communicating with human users.