Robot interaction system and method

1. A method for simulating conversation with a robot, the method comprising:

a) at a user device separate from the robot, receiving, from a user, a conversation input associated with a conversation;

b) at the user device, in response to receiving the conversation input:

sending, to the robot, a control instruction associated with robot simulation of participation in the conversation; and

based on the conversation input and a response module of the user device, determining a response;

c) at the robot:

receiving the control instruction; and

based on the control instruction, controlling the robot to perform an action associated with robot simulation of participation in the conversation;

d) after controlling the robot to perform the action, at the user device, presenting the response; and

e) repeating a) through d) until a conversation input is not received from the user for more than a threshold time interval.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, before a), at the robot:

retrieving a personality module, wherein the personality module is associated with the response module in a one-to-one correspondence; and

automatically controlling the robot based on the personality module.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein performing b) is not based on robot state and is not based on measurements sampled by the robot.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the response module comprises a conversation graph.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, at a remote server separate from the user device and from the robot:

generating an AIML tree index based on an AIML graph; and

sending the AIML tree index to the user device;

wherein the response module comprises the AIML tree index.

6. The method of claim 5 , further comprising, after e):

at the remote server:

determining a modification to the AIML graph;

after determining the modification, generating an updated AIML tree index subset; and

sending the updated AIML tree index subset to the user device;

at the user device:

receiving the updated AIML tree index subset; and

determining an updated AIML tree index based on the AIML tree index and the updated AIML tree index subset; and

after determining the updated AIML tree index, repeating a) through e), wherein the response is determined based on the updated AIML tree index.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, at the user device, before presenting the response, presenting an output indicating of a waiting condition.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein presenting the output indicating of the waiting condition is performed after determining the response.

9. The method of claim 7 , wherein presenting the output indicating of the waiting condition is performed substantially concurrent with controlling the robot to perform the action.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein presenting the response comprises displaying a text representation of the response.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein presenting the response comprises outputting a spoken language representation of the response.

12. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

at the user device:

based on the conversation input and the response module, determining a second control instruction; and

after sending the control instruction to the robot, sending the second control instruction to the robot; and

at the robot:

receiving the second control instruction; and

after controlling the robot to perform the action, based on the second control instruction, controlling the robot to perform a second action associated with the response.

13. A method for simulating conversation with a robot, the method comprising:

at the robot:

retrieving a personality module; and

automatically controlling the robot based on the personality module;

at a user device separate from the robot;

selecting a response module associated with the personality module;

receiving a conversation input associated with a conversation with a user;

in response to receiving the conversation input, sending, to the robot, a control instruction associated with robot simulation of participation in the conversation; and

based on the conversation input and the response module, determining a response;

at the robot, after automatically controlling the robot based on the personality module:

receiving the control instruction; and

based on the control instruction, controlling the robot to perform an action associated with robot simulation of participation in the conversation; and

after controlling the robot to perform the action, presenting the response to the user.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein automatically controlling the robot based on the personality module comprises:

controlling the robot to output a visual output; and

controlling the robot to move.

15. The method of claim 13 , wherein the personality module is associated with the response module in a one-to-one correspondence.

16. The method of claim 13 , wherein presenting the response to the user comprises, at the user device, displaying a text representation of the response.

17. The method of claim 13 , wherein presenting the response to the user comprises, at the robot, outputting a spoken language representation of the response.

18. The method of claim 13 , further comprising, at an audio sensor of the robot, sampling an audio input comprising the conversation input, wherein the user device receives the conversation input from the robot.

19. The method of claim 13 , further comprising, at a remote server separate from the user device and from the robot:

generating a parse tree index based on a conversation graph; and

sending the parse tree index to the user device;

wherein the response module comprises the parse tree index.

20. The method of claim 19 , wherein the conversation graph is an AIML graph.