We present the first demonstration version of the WITAS dialogue system for multi-modal conversations with autonomous mobile robots, and motivate several innovations currently in development for version Ⅱ. The human-robot interaction setting is argued to present new challenges for dialogue system engineers, in comparison to previous work in dialogue systems under the travel-planning paradigm, in that dialogues must be asynchronous, mixed-initiative, open-ended, and involve a dynamic environment. We approached these general problems in a dialogue interface to the WITAS robot helicopter, or UAV ('Unmanned Aerial Vehicle'). We present this system and the modelling ideas behind it, and then motivate changes being made for version II of the system, involving more richly structured dialogue states and the use of automated reasoning systems over task, ability, and world-state models. We argue that these sorts of enhancement are vital to the future development of conversational systems.
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