Dynamic Goal Recognition Using Windowed Action Sequences

David Ménager, Dongkyu Choi, Michael W. Floyd, Christine Task, David W. Aha

Abstract: For robots to work with humans as a team, they need to be aware of what their teammates are doing. Since it is unrealistic to expect humans to constantly communicate their goals and intentions, it is crucial for the robots to accurately and autonomously recognize their teammates’ goals. Furthermore, as these human–robot teams may perform a variety of missions in dynamically changing contexts, the teammates’ goals may change suddenly without warning. Historically, goal recognition systems have not directly addressed this is- sue, but have predominantly focused on situations with static goals. This paper presents a windowing strategy that enables goal recognition systems to detect goal changes in a fast and accurate manner. We describe this novel approach, and show its benefits through an empirical study spanning three different domains.