VEsNA, a Framework for Virtual Environments via Natural Language Agents and Its Application to Factory Automation

Automating a factory where robots are involved is neither trivial nor cheap. Engineering the factory automation process in such a way that return of interest is maximized and risk for workers and equipment is minimized is hence, of paramount importance. Simulation can be a game changer in this scenario but requires advanced programming skills that domain experts and industrial designers might not have. In this paper, we present the preliminary design and implementation of a general-purpose framework for creating and exploiting Virtual Environments via Natural language Agents (VEsNA). VEsNA takes advantage of agent-based technologies and natural language processing to enhance the design of virtual environments. The natural language input provided to VEsNA is understood by a chatbot and passed to an intelligent cognitive agent that implements the logic behind displacing objects in the virtual environment. In the complete VEsNA vision, for which this paper provides the building blocks, the intelligent agent will be able to reason on this displacement and on its compliance with legal and normative constraints. It will also be able to implement what-if analysis and case-based reasoning. Objects populating the virtual environment will include active objects and will populate a dynamic simulation whose outcomes will be interpreted by the cognitive agent; further autonomous agents, representing workers in the factory, will be added to make the virtual environment even more realistic; explanations and suggestions will be passed back to the user by the chatbot.