ENLIV-N: Effective Natural Language Interface for Unmanned Vehicle Navigation Navy SBIR FY2010.2 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2010.2 Topic No.: N102-177 Topic Title: ENLIV-N: Effective Natural Language Interface for Unmanned Vehicle Navigation Proposal No.: N102-177-0621 Firm: Scientific Systems Company, Inc 500 West Cummings Park - Ste 3000 Woburn, Massachusetts 01801 Contact: Kai-yuh Hsiao Phone: (781) 933-5355 Web Site: www.ssci.com Abstract: Scientific Systems Company, Inc. (SSCI), in collaboration with Spatio Systems LLC and Prof. Bennett at Olin College, proposes to design and implement ENLIV-N, an Effective Natural Language Interface for Vehicle Navigation. This multi-modal user interface will translate natural language directions and gesture commands into vehicle waypoints, and coordinate feedback to the operator via video display and synthesized voice. Language understanding will be provided by Spatio's DUNE system, which uses corpora of real-world directions to train a novel phrase-based parsing approach that is uniquely robust to disfluencies. DUNE automatically augments its vocabulary using tagged databases (currently Flickr), and has been tested successfully on two ground robots and an aerial robot in indoor environments. Dr. Hsiao at SSCI will leverage his Ph.D. dissertation work on language-integrated robotic planning systems to provide multimodal integration and planning for the ENLIV-N system. Olin's vehicle from the DARPA Urban Challenge will serve as the autonomous test platform. Phase I work will focus on adapting DUNE in simulation to a mission of operational relevance, while designing the gesture, vehicle, and planning elements. At the end of Phase II, we will demonstrate our approach by commanding a real-world autonomous ground vehicle with waypoint navigation and obstacle avoidance. Benefits: The voice interfaces provided by ENLIV-N simplify command of ground vehicles for any number of applications, but is most immediately applicable to the problem of resupplying forward operating bases in challenging territory. This is especially an urgent need for the Marines and similar forces that deploy in small units. The use of UGVs would remove humans from harm's way during resupply operations, but troops in forward positions rarely have the manpower to task a dedicated vehicle operator. ENLIV-N provides voice-based dialogue control for specifying paths and waypoints, and gesture-based control for face-to-face interactions. The ability to command a logistical supply vehicle with minimal attention and interface requirements would be a game changer for forward operations by small units. Return