Simulating human tasks using simple natural language instructions

The authors report a simple natural language interface to a human task simulation system that graphically displays the performance of goal-directed tasks by an agent in a workspace. The inputs to the system are simple natural language commands requiring achievement of spatial relationships among objects in the workspace. To animate the behaviors denoted by instructions, a semantics of action verbs and locative expressions is devised in terms of physically based components, in particular geometric or spatial relations among the relevant objects. To generate human body motions to achieve such geometric goals, motion strategies and a planner that used them are devised