System and method for semantic processing of natural language commands

US9764477B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• AT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P. · US

Inventors

• Svetlana Stoyanchev · Jersey City, US
• Srinivas Bangalore · Morristown, US
• John Chen · San Francisco, US
• Hyuckchul Jung · Berkeley Heights, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Dec 1, 2014
• Grant date: Sep 19, 2017
• Expiry date: Apr 3, 2035

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G06F40/30
• WIPO field: Handling
• WIPO sector: Mechanical engineering

Abstract

A system, method and computer-readable storage devices are for processing natural language commands, such as commands to a robotic arm, using a Tag & Parse approach to semantic parsing. The system first assigns semantic tags to each word in a sentence and then parses the tag sequence into a semantic tree. The system can use statistical approach for tagging, parsing, and reference resolution. Each stage can produce multiple hypotheses, which are re-ranked using spatial validation. Then the system selects a most likely hypothesis after spatial validation, and generates or outputs a command. In the case of a robotic arm, the command is output in Robot Control Language (RCL).