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Smell, think and act: A cognitive robot discriminating odours

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Abstract

In this paper, we explore the integration of an electronic nose and its odour discrimination functionalities into a multi-sensing robotic system which works over an extended period of time. The robot patrols an office environment, collecting odour samples of objects and performing user requested tasks. By considering an experimental platforms which operates over an extended period of time, a number of issues related to odour discrimination arise such as the drift in the sensor data, online learning of new odours, and the correct association of odour properties related to objects. In addition to an electronic nose our robotic system consists of other sensing modalities (vision and sonar), behaviour-based control and a high level symbolic planner.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Applied Autonomous Sensor Systems, Örebro University, 701-82, Örebro, Sweden

    Amy Loutfi & Silvia Coradeschi

Authors
  1. Amy Loutfi
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  2. Silvia Coradeschi
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Correspondence to Amy Loutfi.

Additional information

Silvia Coradeschi is an associate professor at Örebro University, Sweden. She has received a MSc in Philosophy from the University of Florence, a MSc in Computer Science from the University of Pisa and a Ph.D. in Computer Science at Linkoping University. Her main research interest is in establishing the connection (anchoring) between the symbols used to perform abstract reasoning and the physical entities, which these symbols refer to. She also works in co-operative robotics, mobile robotics and artificial olfaction applied to robotics.

Amy Loutfi is a research assistant at Örebro University, Sweden. She has received a BSc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of New Brunswick, Canada and a PhD. in Computer Science from Örebro University. Her main research interest is in the integration of electronic nose devices into intelligent systems. This pursuit has led to an interest in mobile robotics and artificial intelligence.

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Loutfi, A., Coradeschi, S. Smell, think and act: A cognitive robot discriminating odours. Auton Robot 20, 239–249 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10514-006-7098-8

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