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The researchers trained El-E to recognize a towel visually. The robot identifies the knot and the hanging end of the towel, grips the bottom of the towel, and wheels itself backward, forward, or pulls down. It uses voice-recognition software to follow the same basic commands as a service dog, such as "tug it," "tug it down," "push," "bring it here," and others.
Kemp presented his work on Tuesday at the IEEE International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics, which took place in Scottsdale, AZ. Out of 40 trials, the robot was able to open and close drawers with a 90 percent success rate and open doors with an 80 percent success rate. El-E was also able to open a microwave door, using a towel attached to the door with a suction cup.
Kemp notes that a robotic service assistant would not require the same training and care as a service dog, potentially offering help to many more people. "A lot of people who would like a service dog are unable to have one because they are costly and there's a long waiting list," he says.
Andrew Ng, a professor of computer science at Stanford University, who was not involved in the work, describes it as "very innovative," and adds that copying service dogs makes it much easier for a robot to operate in an unfamiliar environment. "I can easily imagine robots that use these ideas making it into the homes of disabled individuals in the next few years," he says.
"If we're willing to engineer the environment a little bit, [robots] will be in our home a lot sooner," says Kemp. In addition to those with disabilities, he suggests, the elderly could benefit from having helper robots. "Service dogs give you a level of independence and privacy that you might not have with a human caregiver, and robots have that same potential," he says.
They may help efforts to bring the Fukushima plant under control, but are generally expensive and problematic.
Advances in robotics for personal assistance, medicine, and the military in 2008.
By shoving objects around on a table, UMan figures out how they work.
:), 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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