HARMONIC: A Framework for Explanatory Cognitive Robots

TL;DR

HARMONIC is a framework that enables cognitive robots to make complex decisions, communicate naturally, and explain their actions, enhancing trust and collaboration with humans.

Contribution

The paper introduces HARMONIC, a novel framework that integrates high-level decision-making with low-level control for explainable, human-friendly robotic behavior.

Findings

Successfully deployed on simulated UGV and drone

Enabled multi-robot search and retrieval tasks

Demonstrated human-level explanation capabilities

Abstract

We present HARMONIC, a framework for implementing cognitive robots that transforms general-purpose robots into trusted teammates capable of complex decision-making, natural communication and human-level explanation. The framework supports interoperability between a strategic (cognitive) layer for high-level decision-making and a tactical (robot) layer for low-level control and execution. We describe the core features of the framework and our initial implementation, in which HARMONIC was deployed on a simulated UGV and drone involved in a multi-robot search and retrieval task.