A Geometric Agent Following Route Instructions

We present the model of a Geometric Agent that can navigate on routes in a virtual planar environment according to natural-language instructions presented in advance. The Geometric Agent provides a new method to study the interaction between the spatial information given in route instructions and the spatial information gained from perception. Perception and action of the Geometric Agent are simulated. Therefore, the influence of differences in both linguistic and perceptual skills can be subject to further studies employing the Geometric Agent. The goal of this investigation is to build a formal framework that can demonstrate the performance of specific theories of the interpretation of natural-language in the presence of sensing. In this article, we describe the main sub-tasks of instructed navigation and the internal representations the Geometric Agent builds up in order to carry them out.