Welcome to the Golem Group!

The Golem Group develops service robots based on Artificial Intelligence and Human-Robot Interaction to assist people in daily life activities. Our group comprises theoretical research, hardware and software development, and the construction of physical robots. In this project, the robots Golem (2002-2008), Golem en Universum (2019-2010), Golem-II+ (2010-2014) and Golem-III (2014 to the date) have been developed. Our robots are regularly presented at Museo de Ciencias Universum and Biblioteca Central of UNAM. The Golem group participates consistently at Torneo Mexicano de Robótica (TMR) and the international RoboCup competition in the category @Home. Our group has several ongoing projects.

The Golem Group is part of the Departamento de Ciencias de la Computación at Instituto de Investigaciones en Matemáticas Aplicadas y en Sistemas (IIMAS) ncluding colaborators and students from Centro de Investigaciones en Diseño Industrial (CIDI) at Facultad de Arquitectura, Facultad de Ingeniería and FES Aragón and Cuautitlán of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM).

Our work is currently focused on the robot Golem-III which was presented internationally at RoboCup 2016 Leipzig, Germany, where the 6th place was obtained in the category @Home. It has also participated at RoboCup Nagoya 2017 and the RoboCup German Open 2018 and 2019, where the 3rd and 5th places were obtained respectively.

Golem-III has a reasoning system and a non-monotonic knowledge-base. It also has a system for detecting, identifying and following people and a follower of sound activity as well. Moreover, it has a robotic body including a neck, and two arms equipped with five degrees and two degrees of freedom, respectively. In the interaction presented here, Golem-III implements a new platform for diagnosis, decision making and planning that allows it to sustain a daily life inference cycle. This includes reasoning about user’s preferences, as well as, detecting and correcting novel and dynamic environments.

This year, Golem-III has several hardware and software improvements. In the former, a new anthropomorphic hand and a better central structure, head and shoulders have been included. In the latter, a new version of the non-monotonic knowledge-based system has been included. This new knowledge-based system allows Golem-III to provide explanations for novel and unexpected events that occur in its interaction environment. The YOLO (You Only Look Once) vision system for identifying objects in real time, and the Open Pose system for people detection are also incorporated. Its navigation system is in process of improvement.

The test and demos of Golem-III use SitLog programming language on the declarative specification and interpretation of the communication, the task structure, and the robotics behaviors. SitLog is an in-house development of the Golem Group. Its program interpreter is programmed in Prolog, which is also used for the knowledge representation and inference behaviors of the robot. The project has a library of behaviors developed empirically over the years that are programmed with SitLog too.

Contact

Institutional email
golem@turing.iimas.unam.mx

Dr. Luis A. Pineda Cortés.
Team Leader Golem group
lpineda@unam.mx