Hopefully robots can understand these instructions better than humans can.
Robots are great at doing the same thing over and over again in a controlled environment. They are less useful in situations where they need to adapt. Sylvain Calinon and Leonel Rozo, two researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology’s department of advanced robotics in Genoa, are trying to change that.
In a paper to be presented at the conference of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence in Washington state later this year, they explain how a robot can learn a task by being shown how to do it.
Their experimental robot differs from earlier robots that can learn by demonstration in two important ways. First, it can not only learn from humans, who are unpredictable and messy, but then work together with them on a task. That is more impressive than dealing with inanimate, predictable objects like conveyor belts. And its learning isn’t confined to the needs of a single person—it can adapt itself to different people, a messier proposition yet. To test it out, the researchers set their robot the task of helping humans build a table from IKEA....MORE