As Robots Learn to Imitate
Can robots learn to communicate by studying and imitating humans’ gestures? That’s what MIRROR’s researchers aimed to find out by studying how infants and monkeys learn complex acts such as grasping and transferring it to robots.
(PRWEB) January 3, 2005 -- Can robots learn to communicate by studying and
imitating humans’ gestures? That’s what MIRROR’s researchers aimed to find out
by studying how infants and monkeys learn complex acts such as grasping and
transferring it to robots.
“Our main motivation for the project was to
advance the understanding of how humans recognise and imitate gestures,” says
Professor Giulio Sandini, coordinator of MIRROR project. “We did that by
building an artificial system that can learn to communicate by means of body
gestures.”
Researchers began by designing and conducting behavioural
experiments with infants of different ages and with monkeys within the framework
of the so-called ‘mirror neurons’. These neurons, first discovered in the brains
of monkeys, have the unique property of being activated not only when monkeys or
human infants perform specific grasping actions, but also when they see the same
grasping action performed by someone else – for example, the mirror image of his
or her own body. Mirror neurons behave as a motor resonant system activated both
during goal-directed actions and the observation of similar actions performed by
others.
During the first year of the project, researchers worked at
improving humanoid robotic platforms and conducted experiments using a ‘cyber
glove’. This set-up allowed researchers to collect visual and motor data that
was used in investigating the relationship between vision and action in the
recognition of hand gestures.
The second year’s experiments with monkeys
and infants investigated how visual and motor information can be used to learn
to discriminate grasping actions. They then used that information to show how,
by detecting visual clues to the function of an object, a robot can mimic simple
object-directed actions.
In the final year they concentrated on
integrating the developed work into a humanoid robot, which consisted of a
binocular head, an arm, and a multi-fingered hand. Although the integration is
not fully complete, they believe they have uncovered many elements of a
biologically-compatible architecture that can be replicated in robots.
”We now have better knowledge of how and when the ability to grasp
objects appropriately appears in human babies,” says Professor Sandini. “From
the robotics point of view, we demonstrated that it is easier to interpret
actions performed by others if the system has built a representation of the
action during learning. Learning precedes understanding. We implemented a
complex behaviour on our robot based on this representation.”
Although
the project ended, all project members now participate in a follow-up project
called RobotCub that focuses on building a humanoid platform and studying the
development of manipulation skills.
Note to Editors:
Please mention
IST Results as the source of this story and, if publishing online, please
hyperlink to: http://istresults.cordis.lu/
Contact: Tara Morris,
+32-2-2861985, tmorris @ gopa-cartermill.com
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/1/prweb191203.htm