Grounded symbolic communication between heterogeneous cooperating robots

In this paper, we describe the implementation of a heterogeneous cooperative multi-robot system that was designed with a goal of engineering a grounded symbolic representation in a bottom-up fashion. The system comprises two autonomous mobile robots that perform cooperative cleaning. Experiments demonstrate successful purposive navigation, map building and the symbolic communication of locations in a behavior-based system. We also examine the perceived shortcomings of the system in detail and attempt to understand them in terms of contemporary knowledge of human representation and symbolic communication. From this understanding, we propose the Adaptive Symbol Grounding Hypothesis as a conception for how symbolic systems can be envisioned.