Using gesture and speech control for commanding a robot assistant

Giving advice to a mobile robot assistant still requires classical user interfaces. A more intuitive way of commanding is achieved by verbal or gesture commands. In this article, we present new approaches and enhancements for established methods that are in use in our laboratory. Our aim is to interact with a robot using natural and direct communication techniques to facilitate robust performance of simple tasks. Within this paper, we describe the robot´s vision and speech recognition system. Then, we display robot control for selecting the appropriate robot reaction for solving basic manipulation tasks.