JP2003111981A - Robot apparatus and control method thereof, information providing system and information providing method for robot, and storage medium - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [PROBLEMS] To dynamically obtain necessary data and programs by connecting to a network in accordance with an interaction with a user, and utilize it for communication with the user. A robot transfers a request to a specific server in response to a user request made through voice or image. When information that is not in the local storage system is requested, the server further searches the information space on the wide area network such as the Internet, and sends the search result back to the robot as data such as the motion and speech content of the robot. The robot can use the received data to respond to the user's request as a body motion or voice.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a robot apparatus for autonomously operating and realizing realistic communication, a control method thereof, an information providing system and information providing method for a robot, and a storage medium.
In particular, the present invention relates to a robot device that autonomously operates by interaction with a user, a control method thereof, an information providing system and an information providing method for a robot, and a storage medium.

More specifically, the present invention provides a robot apparatus and its control method for providing information that is constantly updated such as news and other information required by a user during a conversation, a control method therefor, and information provision for a robot. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a system, an information providing method, and a storage medium, and in particular, a robot apparatus and a control method thereof for connecting to a network according to an interaction with a user to dynamically acquire necessary data and programs and utilizing the data and communication ,
Information providing system and information providing method for robot,
And a storage medium.

[0003]

2. Description of the Related Art A mechanical device that makes a motion similar to a human motion by using an electrical or magnetic action is called a "robot". The origin of the robot is the Slavic word "ROBO".
It is said that it is derived from "TA (slave machine)." In Japan, robots began to be popular since the end of the 1960s, but most of them are automation of production work in factories.
It was an industrial robot such as a manipulator and a transfer robot for the purpose of unmanned operation.

Recently, the body mechanism of a four-legged animal such as a dog, a cat, and a bear, a pet robot imitating its movement, or a body mechanism of an animal such as a human or a monkey that walks upright on two legs is used. "Humanoid" that imitates movement
Alternatively, research and development on the structure of legged mobile robots such as "humanoid robots" and their stable walking control have progressed, and expectations for their practical application are increasing. These legged mobile robots are more unstable than crawler robots, making posture control and walking control difficult, but they are superior in that they can realize flexible walking and running operations such as climbing stairs and climbing over obstacles. There is.

Stationary type robots, such as arm type robots, which are implanted in a specific place and used,
Mainly active only in fixed and local work spaces such as assembly and selection of parts. On the other hand, a mobile robot has a non-limitative work space, and can freely move on a predetermined route or on a non-route to perform a predetermined or arbitrary human work on behalf of a human or a dog. Alternatively, various services that replace other life forms can be provided.

[0006] One of the uses of the legged mobile robot is to perform various difficult tasks on behalf of industrial activities and production activities. For example, maintenance work in nuclear power plants, thermal power plants, and petrochemical plants, parts transportation / assembly work in manufacturing plants, cleaning in high-rise buildings, agency of dangerous work / difficult work such as rescue at fire sites and the like. .

Further, as another application of the legged mobile robot, rather than the above-mentioned work support, it is a life-oriented type, that is, "symbiosis" or "entertainment" with humans.
There are uses. This kind of robot faithfully reproduces the motion mechanism of humans, dogs (pets), bears and other relatively intelligent legged walking animals and the rich emotional expression using the limbs. In addition to simply faithfully executing the pre-entered motion pattern, it also dynamically responds to the words and attitudes received from the user (or other robot) (such as "praise", "scrib", "hit", etc.). It is also required to realize corresponding and lively response expressions.

In the conventional toy machine, the relationship between the user operation and the response motion is fixed, and the motion of the toy cannot be changed according to the user's preference. As a result, the user eventually gets tired of the toy that repeats only the same operation.

On the other hand, an intelligent robot which autonomously operates generally has a function of recognizing external information and reflecting its own behavior on it. That is, the robot realizes autonomous thinking and motion control by changing the emotion model or the instinct model based on input information such as voice, image, and tactile sense from the external environment to determine the motion. That is, by providing the emotion model and the instinct model, the robot can realize realistic communication with humans at a higher intellectual level.

The intelligent robot has high information processing capability and can be regarded as a kind of computer. On the other hand, with the development of network technology, LA
It is popular to connect a plurality of computers via a communication medium such as an N (Local Area Network) to share peripheral devices and exchange information such as electronic mail and data transfer. Particularly recently, a wireless communication path using a transmission path other than a wired cable is promising. because,
This is because the terminal can be moved relatively easily in the work space by omitting most of the wired cables.

Although the robot can entertain the user sufficiently by autonomous behavior even in a stand-alone state, it is equipped with a network connection function to dynamically acquire necessary data and programs to enable autonomous behavior. It can be used for control. For example, during conversation with a user, information that is updated from time to time such as news and other information that the user wants is searched for dynamically on a wide area network such as the Internet, and dynamically retrieved and provided to the user by words or actions. As a result, the services that can be provided to the user are expanded.

For example, a robot capable of connecting to the Internet uses a WW depending on the context of the conversation with the user.
Searching W (World Wide Web) information space for daily life / information related services such as news, entertainment related services such as fortune telling and games, database related services such as shop information and dictionary lookup, mobile Transaction-related services such as banking can be provided to users. Furthermore, it is also possible to obtain a program code or the like that defines the behavior control of the robot itself at any time to express a new motion.

By connecting to the network using the wireless communication function, the radius of action of the robot is not limited by the cable length, and the leg movement is not affected by the interference of the cable. Work can be secured. Here, as wireless communication,
For example, IEEE802.11b, Bluetooth, etc. can be mentioned.

By the way, the Internet search on a normal computer is performed by a user such as a keyboard or a mouse.
The search is performed based on text-based search conditions (keywords, etc.) obtained by voice input using an interface or voice recognition technology. And, as for the search result, the one using the browser display on the display screen is the mainstream.

Recently, a PDA (Personal Digit
al Assistant) and mobile information terminals such as mobile phones have evolved as personal information tools. For example, mobile phones are satisfying the functions of "speaking" to "using" by Internet connection services such as i-mode. The Internet connection in these mobile information terminals and mobile phones uses interactions based on keyboards and displays.

On the other hand, a robot usually does not have a user interface such as a keyboard or a display. Therefore, the information space on the Internet is searched by forming a search condition based on the information obtained through the input of the voice or the image, for example, the context of the conversation with the user. In addition, the search result is fed back to the user by a conversation with the user or an operation pattern using a leg or the like without depending on the browser display.

[0017]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide an excellent robot device capable of providing, by words and actions, information that is constantly updated such as news and other information that the user desires during conversation. It is to provide a control method thereof, an information providing system and an information providing method for a robot, and a storage medium.

A further object of the present invention is to provide an excellent robot apparatus which can be used for communication with a user by dynamically connecting to a network to obtain necessary data and programs in response to interaction with the user. It is to provide a control method thereof, an information providing system and an information providing method for a robot, and a storage medium.

[0019]

The present invention has been made in consideration of the above problems, and a first aspect thereof is a robot apparatus capable of autonomous operation according to changes in external environment. Or a control method therefor, request recognition means or step for recognizing a request from a user, information search means or step for searching information for answering the recognized request, and reply to the request from the user A robot apparatus or a control method therefor, comprising: an information storage unit or step for storing information for storing information for a user; and a dialogue control unit or step for controlling a dialogue with a user.

Here, the request recognition means or step can recognize the request from the user based on the input result of the image or voice.

Further, the information searching means or step is
When the information for responding to the request from the user is not stored in the local information storage means in the robot device, the information is requested to the external device connected via the predetermined communication medium. .

The dialogue control means or step is
A dialogue with the user is performed based on the search result by the information searching means or step.

The dialog control means or steps are
If the request is not sufficiently specified only by the result recognized by the request recognition unit or step and the information search unit or step cannot search information, a dialog for further specifying the user request To generate.

Further, the information for replying to the request from the user is not stored in the local information storage means in the robot device, and the information searching means or step is connected to the external device via a predetermined communication medium. When requesting information from the user, the dialog control means or step can generate a dialog relating to the user's request so that the conversation with the user is not interrupted.

Further, the dialog control means or steps are:
When the information searching means or step requests information from an external device connected via a predetermined communication medium, the interactive action related to the user's request is once put to sleep, and the information transfer from the external device is completed. In response to this, the sleeping interactive action may be restarted.

Therefore, according to the robot apparatus or the control method thereof according to the first aspect of the present invention, the robot responds to the user's request made through the voice or the image.
Transfer the request to a specific relay server. On the other hand, when the relay server requires information that is not in the local storage system, it further searches an information space on a wide area network such as the Internet, and the search results are used as data such as robot movements and utterance contents. And send it back to the robot. Therefore, the robot can respond to the user's request by using the received data from the relay server as an aircraft motion or voice.

A second aspect of the present invention is an information providing system or information providing method for a robot, comprising first connecting means or steps for connecting to the robot by a predetermined communication protocol, and an information providing space. The second connection means or step for connecting to the wide area network constructed by the above, and the information via the second connection means or step according to the request message received from the robot via the first connection means or step. An information searching means or step for searching a space, and a reply message to the requesting robot based on the search result by the information searching means or step, and the requesting robot via the first connecting means or step. Providing information for a robot, characterized by comprising: Is a stem or information providing method.

However, the term "system" as used herein refers to a logical assembly of a plurality of devices (or functional modules that realize a specific function), and each device and functional module have a single housing. It does not matter whether it is in the body or not.

Here, the first connecting means or step may connect to the robot by inter-object communication. Further, the information searching means or step may search the WWW (World Wide Web) information providing space using an HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) protocol. In such a case, the robot side does not need to implement a communication protocol with a high processing load such as TCP / IP for information search, and the arithmetic function on the machine can be dedicated to the operation control of the machine. The cost of the airframe can be reduced.

Further, the search result processing means or step converts the search result by the information searching means or step into data such as movement or utterance content, and sends the data to the requesting robot via the first connecting means. You may make a reply.

Further, a request message including a predetermined information slot regarding a topic known in advance is received from the robot connected through the first connecting means or step, and the search result processing is performed. The means or step may write the information obtained from the search result in the information slot to generate the reply message.

According to the information providing system for a robot of the second aspect of the present invention, an information space on a wide area network such as the Internet is searched, and the search result is used as a data of the movement of the robot and the utterance content. Can be sent back to the robot as. Therefore, the robot can respond to the user's request by using the received data from the relay server as an aircraft motion or voice.

A third aspect of the present invention is a storage medium that physically stores computer software in a computer-readable format, which is written so as to execute information providing processing for a robot on a computer system. Then, the computer software has a first connecting step of connecting to the robot by a predetermined communication protocol, a second connecting step of connecting to a wide area network in which an information providing space is constructed, and the first connecting step. According to a request message received from the robot, the information search step of searching the information space by the second connection step, and a reply message to the requesting robot based on the search result of the information search step, Search for returning to the requesting robot by the first connection step A storage medium characterized by comprising a fruit processing step.

The storage medium according to the third aspect of the present invention is, for example, a medium that provides computer software in a computer-readable format to a general-purpose computer system capable of executing various program codes. Such a medium is, for example, a CD (Compact Disc).
And FD (Floppy Disk), MO (Magneto-Optical dis)
It is a removable and portable storage medium such as c). Alternatively, it is technically possible to provide computer software to a specific computer system via a transmission medium such as a network (whether the network is wireless or wired).

Such a storage medium defines a structural or functional cooperative relationship between the computer software and the storage medium for realizing a predetermined function of the computer software on the computer system. Is. In other words, by installing the predetermined computer software in the computer system via the storage medium according to the third aspect of the present invention, the cooperative action is exerted on the computer system, and the first aspect of the present invention is achieved. It is possible to obtain the same effects as the information providing system and the information providing method for the robot according to the second aspect.

Further objects, features and advantages of the present invention are as follows.
It will be apparent from the embodiments of the present invention described later and the more detailed description based on the accompanying drawings.

[0037]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 show a legged mobile robot 100 used for implementing the present invention as viewed from the front and the rear, respectively, in an upright state. The legged mobile robot 100 is of a type called “human form” or “human form”, and as described later, can autonomously perform behavior control based on the recognition result of an external stimulus such as voice or image. it can. As shown, the legged mobile robot 100
Is composed of two lower legs of the left and right legs, a trunk, left and right upper limbs, and a head.

The left and right lower limbs have thighs, knee joints,
It is composed of a shin, an ankle, and a foot, and is connected by a hip joint at approximately the lowermost end of the trunk. Each of the left and right upper limbs is composed of an upper arm, an elbow joint, and a forearm, and is connected to each of the left and right side edges above the trunk by a shoulder joint.
The head is connected to the center of the uppermost end of the trunk by a neck joint.

In the trunk unit, a control unit which is not visible in FIGS. 1 and 2 is provided. The control unit is equipped with a controller (main control unit) that controls the drive of each joint actuator that configures the legged mobile robot 100 and processes an external input from each sensor (described later), a power supply circuit, and other peripheral devices. It is a case. The control unit may also include a communication interface and a communication device for remote operation.

FIG. 3 schematically shows a joint degree-of-freedom structure provided in the legged mobile robot 100 according to this embodiment. As shown in the figure, the legged mobile robot 100 includes an upper body including two arms and a head 1, a lower limb including two legs that realize a moving operation, and a trunk that connects the upper limb and the lower limb. Composed of and.

The neck joint that supports the head 1 includes a neck joint yaw axis 2, a neck joint pitch axis 3 and a neck joint roll axis 4.
Have a degree of freedom.

Each arm has a shoulder joint pitch axis 8, a shoulder joint roll axis 9, an upper arm yaw axis 10, an elbow joint pitch axis 11, a forearm yaw axis 12, and a wrist joint pitch axis 13.
It is composed of a wrist joint roll shaft 14 and a hand portion 15. The hand portion 15 is actually a multi-joint / multi-degree-of-freedom structure including a plurality of fingers. However, since the motion itself of the hand portion 15 has little contribution or influence to the posture stabilization control and the walking motion control of the robot 100, it is assumed in this specification that the degree of freedom is zero. Therefore, each of the left and right arms has 7 degrees of freedom.

Further, the trunk has three degrees of freedom: trunk pitch axis 5, trunk roll axis 6, and trunk yaw axis 7.

Further, the left and right legs constituting the lower limbs are
Hip joint yaw axis 16, hip joint pitch axis 17, hip joint roll axis 18, knee joint pitch axis 19, ankle joint pitch axis 20, joint roll axis 21, foot (sole or foot)
22 and 22. The foot portion (foot sole) 22 of the human body is actually a structure including a multi-joint, multi-degree-of-freedom foot sole,
The sole of the legged mobile robot 100 according to the present embodiment has zero degrees of freedom. Therefore, each of the left and right legs has 6 degrees of freedom.

To summarize the above, the legged mobile robot 100 according to this embodiment as a whole has a total of 3 + 7 × 2 +.
It will have 3 + 6 × 2 = 32 degrees of freedom. However, the legged mobile robot 100 is not necessarily limited to 32 degrees of freedom. It goes without saying that the degree of freedom, that is, the number of joints, can be appropriately increased or decreased in accordance with design / manufacturing constraints, required specifications, and the like.

Each of the above-mentioned degrees of freedom of the joints of the legged mobile robot 100 is actually realized as an active motion by an actuator. Due to various demands such as eliminating extra bulges on the appearance of the device to approximate a human body shape and controlling the posture of an unstable structure of bipedal walking, the joint actuator is small and compact. It is preferably lightweight. In this embodiment, a small AC servo actuator of a gear direct connection type and a servo control system integrated into one chip and incorporated in a motor unit is mounted. Regarding the small AC servo actuator applicable to the legged mobile robot 100, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-29 which has already been assigned to the present applicant.
It is disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 9970 (Japanese Patent Application No. 11-33386).

FIG. 4 schematically shows the configuration of the electric / control system of the legged mobile robot 100. As shown in the figure, the legged mobile robot 100 includes a control unit 120 that performs overall control of overall operations and other data processing.
Input / output unit 140, driving unit 150, and power supply unit 160
Composed of and. Hereinafter, each part will be described.

The input / output unit 140 is a CC corresponding to the eyes of the legged mobile robot 100 as an input unit for detecting an external environment.
D camera 115 and microphone 11 corresponding to the ear
6, a touch sensor 118 corresponding to the sense of touch, or various other sensors corresponding to the five senses. Further, as an output unit for performing user feedback, a speaker 117 corresponding to a mouth, or an LED indicator 1 that forms a facial expression by a combination of blinking and timing of lighting.
Equipped with 19, etc. These output units are used by the legged mobile robot 10 in a format other than the mechanical movement pattern of the leg or the like.
User feedback from 0 can be expressed.

The legged mobile robot 100 includes a camera 115.
By including the, it is possible to recognize the shape and color of an arbitrary object existing in the work space. In addition to the visual means such as a camera, the legged mobile robot 100 uses infrared rays,
It may further include a receiving device that receives an outgoing wave such as a sound wave, an ultrasonic wave, or a radio wave. In this case, the position and direction from the transmission source can be measured based on the sensor output that detects each transmitted wave.

The drive unit 150 is a functional block that realizes mechanical motion of the mobile robot 1 in accordance with a predetermined motion pattern instructed by the control unit 120, and includes a neck joint 7, a tail joint 8, hip joints 111A to 111D, and knee joints 112A to 112A. 11
It is composed of a drive unit provided for each axis such as roll, pitch, and yaw in each joint such as 2D.
In the illustrated example, the legged mobile robot 100 has n joint degrees of freedom, and thus the driving unit 150 is composed of n driving units. Each drive unit adaptively controls the rotational position and rotational speed of the motor 151 based on the output of the encoder 151 and the encoder 152 that detects the rotational position of the motor 151 that rotates around a predetermined axis. It is configured by a combination of the drive control circuits 153.

The power supply section 160 is a functional module for supplying electric power to each electric circuit and the like in the legged mobile robot 100, as its name implies. The legged mobile robot 100 according to the present embodiment is an autonomous drive type using a battery, and the power supply unit 160 includes a charging battery 61 and a charging battery 16.
The charging / discharging control part 162 which manages the charging / discharging state of No. 1 is comprised.

The rechargeable battery 161 is constructed, for example, in the form of a "battery pack" in which a plurality of nickel-cadmium battery cells are packaged in a cartridge type.

Further, the charge / discharge control unit 162 is connected to the battery 1
By measuring the terminal voltage of 61, the amount of charging / discharging current, the ambient temperature of the battery 161, etc., the remaining capacity of the battery 161 is grasped, and the start time and end time of charging are determined. The start and end times of charging determined by the charge / discharge control unit 162 are notified to the control unit 120, and serve as triggers for the legged mobile robot 100 to start or end the charging operation.

The control unit 120 corresponds to the “brain” and is mounted on, for example, the head unit or the body unit of the legged mobile robot 100.

FIG. 5 illustrates the configuration of the control unit 120 in more detail. As shown in FIG.
Is the CPU (Central Pr
The cessing unit) 121 is connected to the memory and other circuit components and peripheral devices by a bus. The bus 128 is a common signal transmission line including a data bus, an address bus, a control bus and the like.

RAM (Random Access Memory) 122
Is a writable memory composed of a volatile memory such as a DRAM (Dynamic RAM), and is used for loading a program code executed by the CPU 121 and temporarily storing work data by the execution program. .

A ROM (Read Only Memory) 123 is a read only memory that permanently stores programs and data. The program code stored in the ROM 123 includes a self-diagnosis test program executed when the power of the legged mobile robot 100 is turned on, and the legged mobile robot 1
An operation control program for defining the operation of 00 is included.

The robot 100 according to the present embodiment can perform behavior control according to the recognition result of the external stimulus and the change of the internal state by the motion control program, but the behavior control system configuration will be described later.

The nonvolatile memory 124 is, for example, EEPR.
OM (Electrically Erasable and Programmable ROM)
As described above, the memory element is electrically erasable and rewritable, and is used to hold data to be sequentially updated in a non-volatile manner. Examples of the data to be sequentially updated include security information such as a manufacturing number and an encryption key.

The interface 125 includes the control unit 120.
It is a device that interconnects with external devices and enables data exchange. The interface 125 performs data input / output with the camera 115, the microphone 116, and the speaker 117, for example. Also, the interface 12
5 inputs and outputs data and commands to and from the drive circuits 153-1 ... In the drive unit 150.

The interface 125 is RS
(Recommended Standard) -Serial such as 232C
Interface, IEEE (Institute of Electrica
l andelectronics Engineers) Parallel interface such as 1284, USB (Universal Serial Bus)
Interface, i-Link (IEEE1394)
Interface, SCSI (Small Computer System)
Interface), a memory card interface, etc., and a general-purpose interface for connecting peripheral devices of a computer may be provided to transfer programs and data to / from external devices that are locally connected.

As another example of the interface 125, an infrared communication (IrDA) interface may be provided to perform wireless communication with an external device.

Further, the control unit 120 includes a wireless communication interface 126, and an access point 201 provided within a few meters of the machine by a short-range wireless data communication such as Bluetooth or a wireless network such as IEEE 802.11b. Wireless data communication can be performed between them. The access point 201 is further interconnected to a small-scale network such as a LAN or a wide area network such as the Internet.
Can be led to the information provision space on the network.

As shown in the figure, by connecting to the network using the wireless communication function, the radius of action of the robot 100 is not restricted by the cable length, and the leg motion is not affected by the cable interference. Therefore, the legged work of the robot 100 can be secured.

Further, the legged mobile robot 100 is equipped with such a network connection function, whereby it is possible to dynamically acquire necessary data and programs and utilize them for communication. For example, during conversation with a user, information that is updated from time to time such as news and other information that the user wants is searched for dynamically on a wide area network such as the Internet, and dynamically retrieved and provided to the user by words or actions. And services are expanded.

In order to connect to a network such as the Internet, TCP / IP (Transmissi
It is necessary to equip a relatively high processing load communication protocol such as on Control Protocol / Internet Protocol. In addition, for information provision space such as WWW (World Wide Web), HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol)
It is common to pull out the desired content using the ol) message. On the other hand, in this embodiment, in order to secure real-time operation of the machine body and reduce costs by reducing the processing load associated with communication, the robot 100 itself has a T
CP / IP is not installed, and HTTP is not used for information request. Instead of this, a relay server 202 is interposed between the robot 100 and the WWW information space (information providing server 203).

The relay server 202 uses a communication protocol (inter-object communication:
When the robot 100 requests information that does not exist in the local storage system, the WWW information space on the Internet is searched using HTTP and the search result is further searched for by the robot 100. It is adapted to be converted to data such as movement and utterance content and sent back to the robot 100. As a result, the robot 100 can respond to the user's request by using the received data as an aircraft motion or voice. Details of the function of the relay server 100 will be given later.

The legged mobile robot 100 according to the present embodiment.
With the CPU 121 in the control unit 120 executing a predetermined action control program, the action control can be performed according to the recognition result of the external stimulus and the change of the internal state.
FIG. 6 schematically shows the basic architecture of the behavior control system 50 adopted in the legged mobile robot 100 according to the present embodiment.

Object-oriented programming can be incorporated into the behavior control system 50 shown. In this case, each piece of software is handled in module units called "objects" in which data and processing procedures for the data are integrated. Also, each object is
Data can be passed and invoked by an inter-object communication method using message communication and shared memory.

The behavior control system 50 uses the external environment (En
In order to recognize the virtual objects), the visual recognition function unit 51, the auditory recognition function unit 52, and the contact recognition function unit 5
Equipped with 3.

The visual recognition function unit (Video) 51, for example, performs face recognition, color recognition, etc. based on a photographed image input through an image input device such as a CCD (Charge Coupled Device) camera. Image recognition processing and feature extraction.

The auditory recognition function unit (Audio) 52 performs voice recognition of voice data input via a voice input device such as a microphone to extract a feature or perform word set (text) recognition.

Contact recognition function unit (Tactile) 53
Recognizes an external stimulus such as "stroked" or "struck" by recognizing a sensor signal from a contact sensor incorporated in, for example, the head of the machine body.

Internal status management unit (ISM: Internal Statu)
s Manager) 54 has an instinct model and an emotional model,
The visual recognition function unit 51, the auditory recognition function unit 52,
External stimulus (E recognized by the touch recognition function unit 53
S: manages internal states such as instinct and emotion of the robot 100 according to (External Stimula).

The emotion model and the instinct model have the recognition result and the action history as inputs, and manage the emotion value and the instinct value. The behavior model can refer to these emotional values and instinct values.

Short-term memory (ShortTermMemo
ry) 55 is a functional module that holds the targets and events recognized from the external environment by the visual recognition function unit 51, the auditory recognition function unit 52, and the contact recognition function unit 53 for a short period. For example, the input image from the camera is stored for a short period of about 15 seconds.

Long-term memory (LongTermMemor
y) 56 is used to retain information obtained by learning such as the name of an object for a super period. The long-term storage unit 56 can, for example, associatively store a change in internal state from an external stimulus in a certain action module.

The legged mobile robot 100 according to the present embodiment.
Behavior control is roughly classified into "reflexive behavior" realized by the reflexive behavior unit 59, "business situation dependent behavior" realized by the situation-dependent behavior hierarchy 58, and "contemplation behavior" realized by the deliberative behavior hierarchy 57. To be done.

Reflexive Behavior Unit (Configuratio)
nDependentActionsAndReact
ions) 59 is a functional module that realizes a reflexive body motion according to an external stimulus recognized by the visual recognition function unit 51, the auditory recognition function unit 52, and the touch recognition function unit 53 described above.

Basically, the reflex action is to directly receive the recognition result of the external information input by the sensor, classify the result,
It is an action that directly determines the output action. For example, behaviors such as chasing a human face or nodding are preferably implemented as reflexive behaviors.

Context-dependent behavior hierarchy (SituatedBe)
The layers 58 are stored in the short-term storage unit 55 and the long-term storage unit 56, and the internal state management unit 54.
Based on the internal state managed by, the legged mobile robot 100 controls an action that immediately responds to the current situation.

The state-dependent action hierarchy 58 prepares a state machine for each action, and classifies the recognition result of the external information input by the sensor depending on the action and the situation before that, and the action is classified as a body. Expressed above. The situation-dependent action hierarchy 58 also realizes an action for keeping the internal state within a certain range (also called "homeostasis action"), and when the internal state exceeds the specified range, the internal state Activate the behavior so that it becomes easier for the behavior to return to within the range (actually, the behavior is selected in consideration of both the internal state and the external environment). Situation-dependent behavior has a slower reaction time than reflexive behavior.

Deliberation Behavior Hierarchy (Deliverative)
The Layer) 57 performs a relatively long-term action plan of the legged mobile robot 100 based on the storage contents of the short-term storage unit 55 and the long-term storage unit 56.

The deliberation action is an action that is performed in accordance with a given situation or an instruction from a person to make an inference or a plan for realizing it. Since such inference and planning may require processing time and calculation load rather than reaction time for the robot 100 to maintain interaction, the reflexive behavior and the situation-dependent behavior described above return a reaction in real time and are pondered. Actions make inferences and plans.

The legged mobile robot 100 according to the present embodiment.
Can determine the information required by the user from the context of the user's conversation, etc., retrieve it dynamically on a wide area network such as the Internet via the relay server 202, dynamically retrieve it, and provide it to the user by words or actions.
Such an action is mainly performed by the consideration action layer 57.

As described above, the robot 100 itself does not have TCP / IP and does not use HTTP for requesting information. Instead of this, the robot 100 and WWW
The relay server 202 is interposed between the information space and the information providing server 203. The relay server 202 uses TCP /
The robot 100 is connected to the robot 100 by a communication protocol having a light processing load other than IP, and when the robot 100 requests information that is not in the local storage system, HTTP is used to search the WWW information space on the Internet. Further, the relay server 202 further converts the search result into data such as the movement of the robot 100 and the contents of speech, and sends the data back to the robot 100. As a result, the robot 100 can respond to the user's request by using the received data as an aircraft motion or voice.

FIG. 7 shows the robot 10 according to this embodiment.
The network configuration surrounding 0 is schematically shown.

The robot 100 is equipped with a wireless data communication function and is connected to the network via the access point 201 (described above). The robot 100 has an ability to recognize an instruction given by a user, or a program that the robot determines to be necessary for its own action.

The network referred to here includes a small-scale network such as a LAN and a wide area network such as the Internet.

On the network, the relay server 202 which performs WWW information search for the robot 100 on behalf of the robot 100.
, And many other servers 203, 204, ... On the network, hosts such as servers are interconnected by the TCP / IP protocol, for example.

The relay server 202 stores in advance programs (objects), information contents, data, etc. necessary for the robot 100, updates them at any time, and updates the specific robot 10 via the network.
Deliver to 0 or all robots. Conversely, it is possible to receive programs (objects), information contents, data, etc. sent from the robot 100 and store them in a local storage system.

Further, on the network, there are information providing servers 203 and 204 which provide information for a fee or for free. For example, the information providing server 203 operates as a typical WWW server on which a website is built, and
Information contents described in the TML (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) format are accumulated and disclosed. The relay server 202 can access the HTML content using HTTP.

The other information providing server 204 is GDA
GD described in (Global Document Annotation) format
It operates as a GDA server that stores A documents and discloses information.

Here, GDA is a standard for describing syntactic and common meanings among multiple languages by tag information, such as dependency, referent of pronoun, meaning of polysemous word, and the like. The GDA tag follows the XML (eXtensible Markup Language) format.
Each file tagged by GDA consists of a set of elements (character strings separated by tags). The GDA document is data structured by tags, is easy to use for natural language processing, and can be applied to machine translation, information retrieval, summarization, question answering, knowledge discovery, etc. (For GDA, for example, http://www.carc.aist.go.jp/nlwww/i-con
(See tent / gda /)

When the robot 100 requests information that does not exist in the local storage system, the relay server 202 searches the WWW information providing space on the Internet using HTTP, and the information providing servers 203 and 204.
It can be obtained from

Further, Relay Server 202 analyzes the character information contained in the HTML document acquired from WWW Server 203, tags it based on the meaning, and stores it. The tagging process may be performed by the robot 100, which is the requester of the information, but is preferably performed by the relay server 202 in consideration of the processing speed of the processor, the memory capacity, the hard disk capacity, and the like. Also, GD
Since the GDA document acquired from the A server 204 has already been tagged, the processing load of character information analysis on the relay server 202 side can be light.

FIG. 8 shows the robot 10 according to this embodiment.
0 and the relay server 202 are schematically connected to each other.

On the side of the robot 100, the information requested by the user is not calculated from the context of the user's conversation and the WWW information providing space is searched for by the operation of the reflection behavior layer 57, and the relay server 202 is requested. Request the acquisition and provision of information.

On the other hand, the relay server 202 side is equipped with an inquiry analysis and search engine, and the robot 1
00 based on the request sent from 00, and based on the collected information, the necessary information for the request is created.

The query analysis and search engine first searches for desired information in the local storage system of the relay server 202, and if not found there, further searches for an external server such as the WWW server 203 or GDA server 204. . These external servers are interconnected by the TCP / IP protocol and can access the information contents by using HTTP.

Further, the information content in HTML or GDA format collected from the information space on the network cannot be processed (or is difficult) by the robot 100 side as it is. Therefore, the query analysis and search engine further converts the search result into data such as the movement of the robot 100 and the content of speech, and sends the data back to the robot 100.

One of the main reasons why the robot 100 and the relay server 202 divide the information retrieval processing for the robot 100 in this way is to maintain the real-time property in the interaction with the user on the robot 100 side. is there.

The robot 100 normally interacts directly with the user, but a real-time reaction is indispensable in the interaction, and in this respect, the nature is different from the processing performed by the server 202 side.

The behavior control system 50 as shown in FIG. 6 hierarchically separates real-time processing such as reflexive behavior and situation-dependent behavior from pondering behavior that requires processing time, so that the behavior control system 50 for the user is hierarchically divided. The interaction looks natural.

Therefore, the normal interaction processing is performed by the robot 1.
00, the processing that requires time, such as information retrieval, is delegated to the server 202 outside the robot 100.

As shown in FIG. 8, both the robot 100 and the relay server 57 have gateway objects, and the consideration control hierarchy 57 on the robot 100 side and the query analysis and search engine on the relay server 202 side are H
They are connected by inter-object communication instead of the TTP protocol. A gateway object acts as a gateway to the network, communicating between objects and
Converts CP / IP protocol.

FIG. 9 illustrates the basic concept of typical communication between two objects. In the figure, the basics of data exchange between two objects and "Read
It is shown that loose synchronization is achieved by performing inter-object communication using "y" and "Notify". In addition, data communication is performed by "Sub" in each object.
Since the proxy programs "ject" and "Observer" do this, no information about the communication partner is required to design each object.

The connection between the objects is made when the system is started. FIG. 10 shows a process in which inter-object communication is established between one Subject and one Observer.

First, Subject and Observer
Respectively associates itself with the service name and its own ID assigned at system startup, and
Register with eManager. ServiceMana
ger is one of the objects, but which Subj
It is possible to externally receive data that describes which ect and which Observer are to be combined. In the example shown in FIG. 10, ServiceManager is Con
It is received by reading from a file called nectFile.

Both the objects, Subject and Observer, can be coded without assuming their existence at the time of design. What is required is what data structure is input and output, and which object performs the input and output is ConnectFil.
It is described in e and communication between objects is constructed according to the data.

The above-mentioned gateway object exists as an entrance / exit of the network, and performs inter-object communication and TCP / IP protocol conversion as shown in FIG. Each gateway object has a por
t. There is a setting file called cfg, and it is possible to make correspondence between the service name of communication defined by inter-object communication and the IP address and port number used in TCP / IP communication by the data.

One of the gateway objects is a server (target system) and the other acts as a client (remote system), which is shown in FIG.
It also corresponds to the embodiment shown in FIG.

Each gateway object is shown in FIG.
Follow the procedure described with reference to
r or Subject is dynamically generated, and port. c
Service name described in fg and its Observe
The ServiceManager on each system is linked with the object ID of r or Subject.
Register with er. port. Since it is possible to register as many services as the description difference in cfg, the services to be communicated via the network are port. cf
It can be set freely by describing it in g. Also, this service name is port. Eventually, in order to correspond to the network port (IP address and port number) described in cfg, Observer or Sub
The object ID of the ject and the port number correspond to each other. In gateway objects that exist at different locations on the network, port. cf
By associating the descriptions of g (that is, assigning the same port number to the corresponding inter-object communication service name), it is possible to correspond to the inter-object communication on one side and the other side of the network.

In the sequence for connecting objects, when a connection request arrives at Observer or Subject in the gateway object on the client side, "con" is sent to the corresponding port number.
nect () ". Here, if the target, that is, the gateway object on the server side has already been started, the connection is established. If the target side is not ready, try reconnecting after a few seconds and prepare. Wait until you can.

Once the connection is established, the Observer or Subje in the gateway object will be used thereafter.
Each time ct receives data such as a Notify or Ready message, it sends the message to the corresponding port. Conversely, if the network port receives the data, the corresponding Observer or Subje
Send Notify or Ready message from ct.

After establishing a connection between the gate objects, if a part of the software is to be operated in a remote system via the network, the connection is disconnected and a virtual gateway object is set to 1 It is equivalent to leaving one and making a connection to it.

Since all data is transferred in the virtual gateway object, the objects connected to the gateway object need not be aware of communication via the network at all. Also, since setting a virtual gateway object is a change in the connection between objects, it is not necessary to make a new change in the code of the object, and simply C
All you have to do is rewrite the connectionFile.

Next, the robot 100 and the relay server 20
The contents of the service provided to the user who is interacting with the robot 100 by the collaborative processing 2 will be described. Here, a case where the following interaction is performed between the user and the robot 100 will be described as an example.

User: "What's the weather today?" Robot: "Where are you now?" User: "It's in Tokyo" Robot: "Wait a minute, I'll investigate." (Update the robot with the relay server. , Get information about today's weather and store it in the storage system in the robot) Robot: “I hope it's sunny” User: “Where are you now?” ……… Robot: “Today's Tokyo The weather is fine. "User:"I'm going to Osaka, but it won't rain. "(The robot searches the information stored earlier to check the weather in Osaka.) Robot:" Osaka starts at 6am The probability is 60%. ”User:“ Really! Then I have to bring an umbrella. Thank you ”Robot:“ Welcome you ”

The cooperative processing of the robot 100 and the relay server 202 for establishing such an interaction will be specifically described with reference to FIG.

In the series of interactions shown in FIG. 11, the request from the user to the robot 100 is
It has occurred twice.

The first request of these is "What is the weather today?" The robot 100 inputs this request from the user by voice, recognizes the voice by the auditory recognition function unit 52, and converts the text.

Further, in the contemplation action layer 57, the content of the request is weather information, the information cannot be specified because it is ambiguous only with the information "What is the weather today?", And the current storage system in the robot 100. Judge the situation where this request cannot be answered only by the information stored in. Then, for the user, an interaction for limiting the content of the request is planned.

As a result, the robot 100 asks the user, "Where are you now?", And identifies the content of the request based on the response from the user, "It's Tokyo." And the deliberation action layer 5
7 transmits a request to the relay server 202 using the inter-object communication mechanism as shown in FIG.

When the relay server 202 receives a request from the robot 100 through inter-object communication,
TCP / IP protocol conversion is performed and HTTP is used to search for weather information in the WWW information space. Then, the search result is further converted into data such as the movement of the robot 100 and the utterance content, and sent back to the robot 100. Details of the processing performed on the relay server 202 side will be described later.

Since it takes time to acquire information via the relay server 202, the contemplation action layer 57 formulates an action plan for avoiding an unfavorable (or unpleasant) situation in which the conversation with the user is interrupted. To do. For example, in FIG.
As shown in 1, an interaction that connects conversations, such as "I hope it's sunny", is generated. Of course, the conversation and the behavior related to the user's latest request may be planned, but the present invention is not limited to this, and the conversation and the behavior derived from the user's profile and other situations may be planned.

Then, when the weather information is downloaded from the relay server 202 using the inter-object communication mechanism as shown in FIG. 8, the robot 100 stores the weather information in the local storage system and also reads "Today's Tokyo. The weather is sunny. "

Also, the second request from the user is "I'm going to Osaka, but it won't rain". The robot 100 inputs this request from the user by voice, recognizes the voice by the auditory recognition function unit 52, and converts the text.

Further, in the contemplation action layer 57, the weather information has already been acquired in order to respond to the first request, and it is determined based on the data stored in the local storage system.
Judging the situation that we can handle the second request,
Without accessing the relay server 202 again, the local storage system is searched and the weather information of today's Osaka is acquired, and the reply that "Osaka has 60% of the rain established from 6 o'clock" Can be returned to the user.

Next, the processing on the relay server 202 side will be described by taking the case of processing the first request from the user as an example.

As described with reference to FIG. 8, the contemplation behavior hierarchy 57 in the robot 100 and the query analysis and search engine on the relay server 202 side are connected by inter-object communication.

In the deliberation action layer 57, "Today's weather is
In order to obtain the answer to the request "(location: Tokyo)", a message obtained by converting the request into a logical format is transmitted to the query analysis and search engine of the relay server 202. This message is, for example, "QI".
D = 1; Contents = weather; Loca
tion = Tokyo. Japan; Date = Tod
It has a format in which elements that specify a request such as a question number, a question content, a place, a due date, etc. are listed like "ay".

The processing on the relay server 202 side includes information retrieval based on a request sent from the robot 100 (including both retrieval in the local storage system and WWW retrieval outside the server 203) and collected information. Are roughly divided into processes for generating information required by the robot 100 for the request. Of course, communication with the robot 100 is always performed.

The above-mentioned request from the robot 100 "QID = 1; Contents = weather;
Location = Tokyo. Japan; Date
= Today ”means the relay server 202 and the robot 100.
Perform processing in which the relay server 202 writes information in a pre-specified information slot with respect to the topic "Weather" which are mutually known in advance. For the domain (contents) of Weather, Location (place) and Date (date) are supplementarily added, and Weather =? so? Questions like inserting information into.

In response to this question, the relay server 202 accesses, for example, a pre-registered web page for disclosing weather information and acquires the weather information described in the HTML format as shown below, for example.

[0137]

[Equation 1]

The HTML document is data structured by tags, and it can be understood that today's weather in the Tokyo region is fine by performing a predetermined document analysis.
Of course, it is possible to similarly extract weather information of other regions and regions such as Osaka. A response message to a request from the robot 100 can be created by the analysis processing of such tagged data. The response message is, for example, “AnsT0 = 1; Contents = W
Ether; Date = Today; (Tokyo.
Japan, Fair), (Osaka. Japan,
Fair), (...) ... ”, and has a logical format such as an answer number, an answer content, a due date, an answer result ...

When the robot 100 receives the reply message having the logical format as described above, it can generate the sentence "Today's weather in Tokyo is sunny". That is, in response to the condition of <Location = Tokyo>, Tokyo. J
We searched for a slot that matched apan, acquired "Fair" as weather information, and successively substituted the search results into a template sentence of the form "?" for "<Location>'s<Date>". That is, the answer sentence is generated.

The robot 100 and the relay server 202
When the communication status between the two is bad and it takes a very long time to transfer data, the wireless communication may be disconnected. Even if the information acquisition from the relay server 202 is not in time, the contemplation action layer 57 selects an action suitable for the situation in order to ensure real-time interaction without interruption of the interaction with the user. Develop an action plan to continue active dialogue and actions.

The contemplation action layer 57 selects an action according to the situation. Therefore, when a request is transmitted to the relay server 202, the action is once put to sleep, and another action (conversation) for continuing the interaction with the user is selected and activated. Further, when a message informing that the information transfer from the relay server 202 is completed arrives, the action that has been put to sleep is restarted and a reply to the user's request is made.

The sleep function is equipped with a timer function, and if the sleep state continues for a preset time or more, the action is forcibly terminated.

[Supplement] The present invention has been described in detail with reference to the specific embodiments. However, it is obvious that those skilled in the art can modify or substitute the embodiments without departing from the scope of the present invention.

The gist of the present invention is not necessarily limited to products called "robots". That is, as long as it is a mechanical device that performs a motion similar to a human motion by using an electrical or magnetic action, even if the product belongs to another industrial field such as a toy, the present invention is also applicable. Can be applied.

In short, the present invention has been disclosed in the form of exemplification, and the contents of this specification should not be construed in a limited manner. To determine the gist of the present invention,
The claims section mentioned at the beginning should be taken into consideration.

[0146]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention,
An excellent robot device and a control method therefor capable of providing information that is constantly updated, such as news, and other information requested by the user during conversation, and an information providing system and information providing method for the robot , And a storage medium can be provided.

Further, according to the present invention, an excellent robot apparatus capable of connecting to a network according to an interaction with a user to dynamically acquire necessary data and programs and utilizing the data and programs for communication with the user is provided. A control method therefor, an information providing system and information providing method for a robot, and a storage medium can be provided.

The robot according to the present invention transfers a request to a specific server in response to a user's request made through voice or images. When information that is not in the local storage system is requested, the server further searches an information space on a wide area network such as the Internet and sends back the search result as data such as the robot movement and utterance content. As a result, the robot can respond to the user's request by using the received data as an aircraft motion or voice.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a legged mobile robot 10 used for implementing the present invention.
It is the figure which showed a mode that 0 was seen from the front.

FIG. 2 is a legged mobile robot 10 used for implementing the present invention.
It is the figure which showed a mode that 0 was seen from the back.

FIG. 3 is a diagram schematically showing a degree-of-freedom configuration model included in the legged mobile robot 100 according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram schematically showing a configuration diagram of an electric / control system of the legged mobile robot 100.

5 is a diagram showing a detailed configuration of a control unit 120. FIG.

FIG. 6 is a diagram schematically showing a basic architecture of a behavior control system 50 adopted in the legged mobile robot 100 according to the embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a diagram schematically showing a network configuration surrounding the robot 100 according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a diagram schematically showing a configuration for interconnecting the robot 100 and the relay server 202 according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a diagram for explaining the basic concept of typical communication between two objects.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing a mechanism for connecting objects.

FIG. 11 is a chart for explaining the content of services provided to a user who is interacting with the robot 100 by the cooperative processing of the robot 100 and the relay server 202.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Head, 2 ... Neck joint yaw axis 3 ... Neck joint pitch axis, 4 ... Neck joint roll axis 5 ... Trunk pitch axis, 6 ... Trunk roll axis 7 ... Trunk yaw axis, 8 ... Shoulder joint pitch axis 9 ... Shoulder joint roll axis, 10 ... Upper arm yaw axis 11 ... Elbow joint pitch axis, 12 ... Forearm yaw axis 13 ... Wrist joint pitch axis, 14 ... Wrist joint roll axis 15 ... Hand, 16 ... Hip joint yaw axis 17 ... Hip pitch axis, 18 ... Hip roll axis 19 ... Knee joint pitch axis, 20 ... Ankle joint pitch axis 21 ... Ankle joint roll axis, 22 ... Foot (sole) 50 ... Behavior control system 51 ... Visual recognition function unit 52 ... Auditory recognition function unit 53 ... Contact recognition function unit 54 ... Internal state management unit 55 ... Short-term memory 56 ... Long-term storage 57… Consideration action class 58 ... Situation-dependent behavior hierarchy 59 ... Reflex action section 100 ... Legged mobile robot 115 ... CCD camera 116 ... Microphone 117 ... speaker 118 ... Touch sensor 119 ... LED indicator 120 ... Control unit 121 ... CPU 122 ... RAM 123 ... ROM 124 ... Non-volatile memory 125 ... Interface 126 ... Wireless communication interface 128 ... bus 140 ... Input / output section 150 ... Drive unit 151 ... Motor 152 ... Encoder 153 ... Driver

Front page continuation (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ identification code FI theme code (reference) G06F 9/44 570 G06F 9/44 570E 17/60 132 17/60 132 146 146Z (72) Inventor Kenzo Ishida Shinagawa, Tokyo 6-735 Kita-Shinagawa-ku, Sony Corporation (72) Inventor Hideki Shimomura 6-7-35 Kita-Shinagawa, Tokyo Shinagawa-ku, Sony Corporation (72) Kotaro Sabe Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo Kita-Shinagawa 6-35 Soni Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Go Takagi Kita-Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo Shinagawa-ku Kita-Shinagawa 6-35 Soni Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Toshiri Doi Kita-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 6-chome 7-35 F-term in Sony Corporation (reference) 2C150 CA01 DA04 DA24 DA26 DA27 DA28 DF03 DF06 DF33 ED42 ED47 ED52 EF07 EF16 EF17 EF22 EF23 EF28 EF29 EF33 EF36 3C007 AS36 CS08 JS03 JS07 WA13 WT15 MT15 MT15 MT15 MT15 MT15 WC15

Claims (25)

[Claims] 1. A robot apparatus capable of autonomously operating in accordance with a change in an external environment, request recognizing means for recognizing a request from a user, and searching for information for answering the recognized request. A robot apparatus comprising: an information searching unit for storing information, an information storing unit for storing information for responding to a request from a user, and a dialogue control unit for controlling a dialogue with the user. 2. The robot apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the request recognition means recognizes a request from a user based on an input result of an image or a sound. 3. The information search means, when the information for answering the request from the user is not stored in the information storage means, requests the information from an external device connected via a predetermined communication medium. The robot apparatus according to claim 1, wherein: 4. The robot apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the dialogue control means has a dialogue with a user based on a search result by the information searching means. 5. The dialogue control means further requests the user if the request is not sufficiently specified by the result recognized by the request recognition means and the information search means cannot search information. The robot apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a dialogue for specifying a request is generated. 6. When information for replying to a request from a user is not stored in the information storage means and the information search means requests information from an external device connected via a predetermined communication medium, The robot apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the dialogue control means generates a dialogue related to a user's request so that a conversation with the user is not interrupted. 7. The dialogue control means, when the information searching means makes a request for information to an external device connected via a predetermined communication medium, once puts a dialogue action related to a user's request to sleep, and The robot apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the interactive behavior that has been put to sleep is restarted in response to the completion of the information transfer from the external apparatus. 8. A method of controlling a robot apparatus capable of autonomously operating in accordance with changes in an external environment, the request recognizing step of recognizing a request from a user, and a step of answering the recognized request. A robot apparatus comprising: an information searching step for searching information, an information storing step for storing information for answering a request from a user, and a dialogue control step for controlling dialogue with the user. Control method. 9. The method for controlling a robot apparatus according to claim 8, wherein in the request recognition step, a request from a user is recognized based on an input result of an image or a sound. 10. In the information searching step, an external device connected via a predetermined communication medium when information for answering a request from a user is not stored in a storage device in the robot device. 9. The method for controlling a robot apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the request is made to the information. 11. The method of controlling a robot apparatus according to claim 8, wherein in the dialogue control step, a dialogue with a user is performed based on a search result obtained in the information search step. 12. In the dialogue control step, if the request is not sufficiently specified only by the result recognized by the request recognition step and the information search step cannot search information, further user's The dialogue for generating a request is generated.
6. A method for controlling a robot apparatus according to item 1. 13. Information for replying to a request from a user is not stored in a storage device in the robot device, and the information searching step requests information from an external device connected through a predetermined communication medium. In this case, in the case, the interaction control step generates an interaction related to a user's request so that the conversation with the user is not interrupted. 14. The dialogue control step, when the information searching step requests information from an external device connected via a predetermined communication medium, once puts a dialogue action related to a user's request to sleep, and 9. The control method for the robot apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the interactive behavior that has been put to sleep is restarted in response to the completion of the information transfer from the external apparatus. 15. An information providing system for a robot, comprising: a first connecting means for connecting to the robot by a predetermined communication protocol; and a second connecting means for connecting to a wide area network in which an information providing space is constructed. An information search means for searching the information space via the second connection means in accordance with a request message received from the robot via the first connection means, and a request source based on a search result by the information search means. The search result processing means for generating a reply message to the robot and returning it to the requesting robot via the first connecting means. 16. The information providing system for a robot according to claim 15, wherein the first connecting means connects to the robot by inter-object communication. 17. The information searching means is HTTP (Hyper).
WWW using Text Transfer Protocol
(World Wide Web) The information providing system for a robot according to claim 15, wherein the information providing space is searched. 18. The search result processing means converts the search result by the information searching means into data such as movement and utterance content, and sends the data back to the requesting robot via the first connecting means. An information providing system for a robot according to claim 15, wherein: 19. A request message including an information slot defined in advance for a mutually known topic is received from a robot connected through the first connecting means, and the search result processing means receives the request message. Write the information obtained from the search result in the information slot to generate a reply message,
The information providing system for a robot according to claim 15, wherein. 20. An information providing method for a robot, comprising: a first connecting step of connecting to the robot by a predetermined communication protocol; and a second connecting step of connecting to a wide area network in which an information providing space is constructed. An information search step of searching the information space in the second connection step according to a request message received from the robot in the first connection step, and an answer to the requesting robot based on the search result in the information search step A search result processing step of generating a message and returning the message to the requesting robot by the first connection step. 21. The information providing method for a robot according to claim 20, wherein in the first connecting step, the robot is connected by inter-object communication. 22. In the information searching step, HTTP is used.
The information providing method for a robot according to claim 20, wherein a WWW (World Wide Web) information providing space is searched using a (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) protocol. 23. In the search result processing step, the search result of the information searching step is converted into data such as movement and utterance content, and is returned to the requesting robot in the first connecting step. Claim 20
An information providing method for the robot described in. 24. A request message including an information slot defined in advance for a mutually known topic is received from the robot connected in the first connecting step, and the information slot is received in the search result processing step. 21. The information providing method for a robot according to claim 20, wherein the information obtained from the search result is written in to generate a reply message. 25. A storage medium physically storing computer software in a computer-readable format, which is written so as to execute an information providing process for a robot on a computer system, the computer software comprising: A first connection step of connecting to the robot by a predetermined communication protocol, a second connection step of connecting to the wide area network in which the information providing space is constructed, and a request message received from the robot by the first connection step, An information search step of searching the information space by the second connection step, and an answer message to the request source robot is generated based on the search result by the information search step, and the request source of the request message is generated by the first connection step. A search result processing step of replying to the robot, A storage medium characterized by being provided.