Developing a robot that’s capable of learning means that it can go beyond its machine programming and be taught from humans through simple observation, much the way children are. Giving a robot the ability to collaborate enables the robot to engage in teamwork activities with other humans. Emotional intelligence is of course another crucial component because emotions communicate vast amounts of information during any kind of interaction. The final component is perhaps the most crucial one: Thomaz explains, ¨A lot of research shows that people are really good at perceiving people’s intentions and goals from their actions. If I see you reach for a tool, I’m going to infer that you want that tool and think about why you want it. It’s a lot different than just seeing some pixels on a screen and inferring your hand is moving—a social robot needs to go further and understand why your hand is moving¨.

So what are these so-called social robots actually good for? They’re currently being tested for use as a treatment option for children with autism and they’re also being used in elderly care as exercise facilitators. Although they’re being referred to as social robots, nobody says you have to make friends with one of them! In fact, their perceptive abilities make them suitable for use in environments that may be highly unpredictable for example, oil spills or search and rescue missions.

If you’re interested in finding out about more on social robots, you can check out the European initiative:  Robot Companions for Citizens. Further information on this post can also be found in an article by the Kavli Foundation which aims to support scientists by promoting the public understanding of their work.

The robot featured in the picture is named Matilda and she also has a ¨male¨counterpart named Jack. Their creators at La Trobe University ( in partnership with  Kyoto University and Japan’s NEC Corporation) anticipate that these robots will assist in the health care sector or out in the community. Instead of being developed for the purpose of fulfilling a handful specific tasks, their ¨social¨nature allows them to be deployed in many different contexts.  Director of the Research Centre for Computers, Communication and Social Innovations (RECCSI) at La Trobe University, Dr Rajiv Khosla, sees technology as a means to creativity, further stating that  ¨inanimate technology only serves a purpose of convenience while these emotionally intelligent robots will enhance people’s lives’.¨

Matilda’s skills have already been put to the test at  an aged care facility in Queensland, Australia where she assists nurses by helping them monitor stress and anxiety levels of patients. While these robots may also be used as driving companions, homework helpers and communication assistants for children with autism, Khosla points out that  ¨elderly care is a sector that is growing fast and we have to think of new and creative solutions to help¨

These researchers aren’t the only ones who are working on perceptive bots! Likewise,    Robot Companions for Citizens  believes today’s scientists have to get creative in order to foster solutions for tomorrow’s  challenges. Furthermore, this project believes in the value of creating ¨sentient¨machines which will be designed to have a clear cut scientific implementations. Click HERE  to find out more about the kind of robots envisioned by this European initiative.

MIT researchers released Boxie into different environments around the university where it would autonomously engage in interactions with people that were hanging around. People could either agree to participate in Boxie’s documentary about MIT by pressing a green button on one of its sides or they could a make sad-sounding Boxie go away by pressing a red button on its other side.

Making use of its interactive robotic camera, Boxie can be used as an autonomous method for capturing structured documentaries and, while story gathering was the bot’s most overt goal, researchers at the media lab were also viewing the project from another perspective. The MIT Media lab is known to carry out research that is often considered unorthodox. Usually it focuses in on the impact of emerging technologies on everyday life.

¨We hope that this type of interaction that we studied will lead to simpler systems that may be more symbiotic with people… using this simple emotional tie to create better systems and better interactions for people¨ Explains the MIT representative in the video above.

What makes people favour a bot like Boxie over one that displays cold mechanical mannerisms and where might robots with this kind of gentle of behaviour be most useful?

If you’re interested in finding out more about new kinds of social robots, check out the European initiative, Robot Companions for Citizens.

The ALIZ-E project investigates the use of social robots with children in hospitals

The European project ALIZ-E began in the spring of 2010 and is scheduled to run for another 3 years with 8.29M€ in funding.

The goal of the project is to determine
how human-robot interactions can be improved in order to foster  beneficial long-term  bonds between robots and their users. The project is exploring this by using social robots as dynamic assistants in the care of children with metabolic disorders; diabetes and obesity. Researchers from 9 different European institutions are using the small Aldebaran Nao humanoid robot as their test platform  at the Hospital San Raffaelle in Milan, Italy.

The team believes that long-term human-robot interaction may only be achieved by focusing on the four following  research threads: adaptive memory for long-term interaction, adaptive user and task modeling, adaptive non-linguistic behaviour, and  adaptive linguistic interaction. This means that robots will need to have  some capacity for memory in order to maintain pertinent information about the user and the context, and be able to adapt their physical and verbal behaviours to their users and contexts as well.

These types of robots would be able  to involve a child in a game to prevent anxiety in a hospital environment while being aware of the child’s mood,  capable of switching to  another game if the child were to lose interest.  The robot could also teach the child  a dance to promote physical activity while assessing  the child’s progress in learning the sequence of moves, repeating the sequences and motivating them as needed.

Currently, the project is continuing to  develop the theory and practice behind embodied cognitive robots in the hopes that it will lead to the development of educational companion robots for child users.  The Flagship Initiative Robot Companions for Citizens is another European funded initiative supported by Alderaban robotics, which believes in the importance of developing future robots designed for long-term human-robot interaction. Find out more HERE.