Robot assist: Georgia Tech’s El-E opens a door by pulling a towel attached to the handle, the same way that a service dog would. El-E also follows verbal commands and can open drawers to retrieve items. It could assist those with disabilities or the elderly.
Hai Nguyen
A robot inspired by helper dogs could assist the disabled and the elderly.
Service dogs that open doors, switch on lights, and perform other useful tasks offer a much needed lifeline to people with disabilities. Now researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are developing robots that mimic the relationship between humans and their canine helpers.
Robotics researchers have long sought to create robots that can help out around the home. But while robots are good at carrying out preprogrammed tasks and following a clear trajectory, navigating a complex home environment and interacting with real people remains a formidable challenge.
Charles Kemp, a professor at Georgia Tech, believes that animal helpers may offer the ideal model for robotic assistants. He began by studying the way that helper monkeys--capuchins trained to perform useful tasks for disabled people--fetch an object or operate a device when it is highlighted with a laser pointer. "That got us excited about what we can learn from state-of-the-art biological systems," says Kemp. It also inspired him and his colleagues to develop El-E, a robot that they trained to respond to commands given via a laser pen earlier this year.
More recently, Kemp and his student Hai Nguyen realized the potential of canine helpers after seeing a demonstration given by a charity called Georgia Canines for Independence. These dogs are trained to open doors, drawers, and cupboards and to fetch objects or operate lights when given a command. "We were amazed at what the dog could do [and] found out there's a list of commands service dogs obey," Kemp says. "That seemed like a great model to go by. If we could make a robot that obeys all those commands, we knew that we would have something valuable."
The latest version of El-E has been upgraded so that, in addition to responding to a laser pointer, it understands voice commands and can perform a wider range of tasks. The robot can be commanded the same way as a service dog--to grab hold of a towel attached to a door, drawer, or cupboard when given the right vocal command. As with service dogs, towels help the robot with both perception and physical interaction. "[El-E] doesn't know anything about the specific drawer or doors: it's able to generalize with these commands," says Kemp. "A towel is actually easy to grasp because you can be at many locations on it and still get a good grip."
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:), helping as many people as possible.
Overall I think a robot canine helper could truly benefit our society. The fact they've been tested at a 90% operation sucess rate and carry out speech recognition is very impressive. It is also great that it would allow the owner to have more privacy on a daily basis. The one disadvantage to this is that it takes away the symbolic meaning for having a canine helper. I think only a real dog can provide that special companionship for its owner. This is definatly a win lose situation. In all, if the owner receives the same gratification and satisfaction from a robot canine helper they should obtain full rights towards this new technology.
i dont think there is anything that can be made mechanically that will substitute for the existing relationship that occurs between a human and man's best friend. i dont really see any benefits from this because why not have a dog? they are the best...except for the uga dogs
I work as a dog trainer and I love animals but we simply can't train enough dogs for the demmand around 7% of the UK population are disabled within those this comes to around 11 million people. Of those 11 million 1.2 million are physically disabled and could benefit from this technology so don't just disregard this technology it would reduce the demmand for working dogs yes but not replace them entirely.
well this all depends on your perspective of things. if you think of the benefit of a robot, sure it sounds like a good idea, but if you think about a dog there is an actual relationship. You can actually play and pet a dog however you cannot with a cold metal robot so it all depends on how you look at it. so it's debatable.
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Bruceahz
38 Comments
Not a dog substitute (yet?)
I'm going to go out on a limb here but I expect the rags tied to objects are only training aids for the dogs. For the robot it seems to required both for recognition and for grasping.
Dogs, having intelligence, can adapt to the new tasks asked of them. This robot, lacking intelligence, cannot.
Monkeys, having both intelligence and opposable thumbs, can do the most.
Of course, the care required for these three helpers is inversely related to their capabilities.
Perhaps someday an affordable robot with enough AI to be a really good helper will be developed.
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cckemp
1 Comment
Re: Not a dog substitute (yet?)
Hi,
It turns out that people do tie fabric to door handles and drawer handles to help service dogs operate them on a daily basis, not just for training purposes. We worked closely with Georgia Canines for Independence so that we could learn about service dogs. You can read more about our research in the paper on our lab website:
http://healthcare-robotics.com
Here's a direct link to the paper:
http://www.hsi.gatech.edu/hrl/pdf/biorob08_canine.pdf
Best wishes,
Charlie
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