If robots are going to become part of our everyday lives, they'll need to learn to work with everyday things. That means being able to read instruction manuals and figuring out how to use new machines. That's the plan of researchers at Cornell University, who have programmed a robot barista that can not only make a latte, but figure out how to use an unfamiliar espresso maker.
Developing robots is more than a matter of mechanical engineering. There's also the problem of how to teach them how to carry out tasks. For research and factory robots, this can be done by programming them directly, or by guiding them through their paces using controllers like keyboards, joysticks, or Waldos. However, if robots are to work in more human environments like homes, offices, shops, and restaurants, they need to be able to learn by themselves.
Led by Ashutosh Saxena, assistant professor of computer science, the Cornell team set about developing a robot barista that can use its experience and that of other robots, along with text materials, to deduce how to use an unfamiliar machine. If the robot barista has operated three other coffee machines, reasons Saxena, then it should be able to figure out a fourth.
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