Communication skills

This page lists system skills (ie, installed by default) related to 💬 Communication. You can directly use these skills in your tasks and mission controller.

ask_human_for_help

Ask a human for help

Input parameters

  • question_to_human string, required

    The question to ask to the human.

  • person_id string array

    The preferred person IDs to ask for help. Those humans will be prioritized when asking for help. If left empty, all tracked humans are considered.

Quick snippets

Call the skill from the command-line
$ ros2 action send_goal /skill/ask_human_for_help interaction_skills/action/AskHumanForHelp # then press Tab to complete the message prototype

How to use in your code

See code samples for the corresponding /skill/ask_human_for_help: code samples

ask

A specialization of the chat where the role is predefined and the dialogue is always initiated by the robot.

See How-to: Dialogue management for details.

Input parameters

  • question string, required

    The question to be asked to the user. It is used to generate the initial utterance of the dialogue.

  • answers_schema string, required

    The serialized JSON object of pieces of information to be retrieved through the chat. The keys correspond to the info required, while the values follow the JSON schema format for object properties.

    For example, if the required information is the person age, the dictionary could be the following:

    {"age": {"type": "integer", "minimum": 0}}

    For a simple yes/no question, you could have instead:

    {"response": {"type": "boolean"}}

  • person_id string, default: ""

    If targeting a specific person, the ID of the person.

  • group_id string, default: ""

    If targeting a group of people, the ID of the group (currently not supported).

  • meta.priority integer, default: 128

    Between 0 and 255. Higher value means that this skill invokation will have higher priority.

Output fields

  • answers object

    The serialized JSON object containing the pieces retrieved from the chat, depending on the answers_schema.

    For age example above, the result might be:

    {"age": 42}

Quick snippets

Call the skill from the command-line
$ ros2 action send_goal /skill/ask communication_skills/action/Ask # then press Tab to complete the message prototype

How to use in your code

See code samples for the corresponding /skill/ask: code samples

chat

Start a dialogue with a defined purpose.

See How-to: Dialogue management for details.

Input parameters

  • role string, default: __default__, required

    The name and configuration for the dialogue purpose (chatbot-dependent).

  • initiate boolean, default: False

    If true, the dialogue is opened and the robot initiates the conversation.

  • initial_input string, default: ""

    Optionally specify the utterance the chatbot initiates the conversation with. Otherwise, the chatbot may generate one based on the role. It is ignored if initiate is false.

  • person_id string, default: ""

    If targeting a specific person, the ID of the person.

  • group_id string, default: ""

    If targeting a group of people, the ID of the group (currently not supported).

  • meta.priority integer, default: 128

    Between 0 and 255. Higher value means that this skill invokation will have higher priority.

Output fields

  • role_result string

    A machine-readable serialized JSON object containing the result, depending on the role.

Quick snippets

Call the skill from the command-line
$ ros2 action send_goal /skill/chat communication_skills/action/Chat # then press Tab to complete the message prototype

How to use in your code

See code samples for the corresponding /skill/chat: code samples

say

Speak out the provided input text (also executing any additional markup action).

See How-to: Speech synthesis (TTS) for details.

Input parameters

  • input string, required

    The multi-modal expression to be read-out.

  • person_id string, default: ""

    If targeting a specific person, the ID of the person.

  • group_id string, default: ""

    If targeting a group of people, the ID of the group (currently not supported).

  • meta.priority integer, default: 128

    Between 0 and 255. Higher value means that this skill invokation will have higher priority.

Quick snippets

Call the skill from the command-line
$ ros2 action send_goal /skill/say communication_skills/action/Say # then press Tab to complete the message prototype

How to use in your code

See code samples for the corresponding /skill/say: code samples