CoTeSys—Cognition for Technical Systems

The CoTeSys cluster of excellence (Beetz et al. in Proceedings of the 30th German Conference on Artificial Intelligence, KI-2007, pp. 19–42, 2007) investigates cognition for technical systems such as robots and factories. Cognitive technical systems (CTS) are information processing systems equipped with artificial sensors and actuators, integrated and embedded into physical systems, and acting in a physical world. They differ from other technical systems as they perform cognitive control and have cognitive capabilities. Cognitive control orchestrates reflexive and habitual behavior in accord with longterm intentions. Cognitive capabilities such as perception, action, knowledge and models, reasoning, learning and planning turn technical systems into systems that “know what they are doing”. The cognitive capabilities result in systems of higher reliability, flexibility, adaptivity and better performance.