[Editors] MIT's assistive robot adapts to people, new places

[Elizabeth Thomson]

MIT News Office
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Room 11-400
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA  02139-4307
Phone: 617-253-2700
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/www

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MIT's assistive robot adapts to people, new places
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For Immediate Release
WEDNESDAY, APR. 11, 2007
Contact: Elizabeth A. Thomson, MIT News Office
Phone: 617-258-5402
Email: thomson at mit.edu

PHOTOS AVAILABLE

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--In the futuristic cartoon series "The Jetsons," a 
robotic maid named Rosie whizzed around the Jetsons' home doing 
household chores--cleaning, cooking dinner and washing dishes.

Such a vision of robotic housekeeping is likely decades away from 
becoming reality. But at MIT, researchers are working on a very early 
version of such intelligent, robotic helpers--a humanoid called Domo 
who grasp objects and place them on shelves or counters.

A robot like Domo could help elderly or wheelchair-bound people with 
simple household tasks like putting away dishes. Other potential 
applications include agriculture, space travel and assisting workers 
on an assembly line, says Aaron Edsinger, an MIT postdoctoral 
associate who has been working on Domo for the last three years.

Edsinger describes Domo as the "next generation" of earlier robots 
built at MIT-Kismet, which was designed to interact with humans, and 
Cog, which could learn to manipulate unknown objects. Domo 
incorporates elements of both of those robots.

"The real potential of robots in the future is going to be realized 
when they can do many types of manual tasks," including those that 
require interaction with humans, Edsinger said.

There are now plenty of robots doing manual work on factory assembly 
lines, but those machines follow a script and can't learn to adapt to 
new situations, as Domo can, said Rodney Brooks, director of MIT's 
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

"Robots in an automobile factory manipulate objects, but they do the 
same thing, along the same path, every time," Brooks said. "If robots 
are ever going to be truly useful, they need to be able to manipulate 
the objects we manipulate."

Living in the real world

Edsinger's team, overseen by Brooks, decided to focus on making a 
robot that can function in a real human environment-in someone's 
kitchen, for example. Robots that are designed to help people in 
their homes will have to be able to ignore the clutter found in most 
environments and focus only on certain stimuli, says Edsinger.

"Typically robots are placed in very restricted worlds because then 
you can control the environment. If you put a robot in someone's 
home, that approach just doesn't extend to that," he said. "We want 
the robot to adapt to the world, not the world to adapt to the robot."

Perched on a table in Edsinger's workspace, Domo can "see" everything 
going on in front of it. As the robot's large blue eyes roam across 
the room, cameras feed information to 12 computers that analyze the 
input and decide what to focus on.

Domo's visual system is attuned to unexpected motion, allowing it to 
focus on important stimuli within human environments. For example, 
locating human faces is critical for social interaction, and people 
are often in motion. When Domo spots motion that looks like a face, 
it locks its gaze onto it.

Edsinger recently demonstrated how Domo can interact with people to 
help them accomplish useful tasks.

Once he captures Domo's gaze, they exchange greetings. "Hey, Domo," 
Edsinger says, to which Domo responds, "Hey, Domo." "Shelf, Domo," 
says Edsinger, prompting the robot to find a shelf. Domo looks around 
until it spots a nearby table that looks promising. The robot reaches 
out its left hand to touch the shelf, much like a person groping for 
a light switch in the dark, to make sure the shelf is really there.

Once Domo has located the shelf, it reaches out its right hand 
towards Edsinger, who places a bag of coffee beans in the open hand. 
Domo wiggles them a little to get a feel for the object, then 
transfers the bag from its right hand to its left hand (nearest the 
shelf). Domo then reaches up and places the bag on the shelf.

Though it seems like a minor movement, wiggling the object is key to 
the robot's ability to accurately place it on a shelf, Edsinger says. 
Domo is programmed to learn about the size of an object by focusing 
on the tip of the object, for example, the cap of a water bottle. 
When the robot wiggles the tip back and forth, it can figure out how 
big the bottle is and decide how to transfer it from hand to hand or 
to place it on a shelf.

"You can hand it an object it's never seen before, and it can find 
the tip and start to control it," Edsinger said.

The human connection

The philosophy behind the team's approach is that humans and robots 
can work together to accomplish tasks that neither could do all alone.

"If you can offload some parts of the process and let the robot 
handle the manual skills, that is a nice synergistic relationship," 
Edsinger said. "The key is that it has to be more useful or valuable 
than the effort put into it."

For Domo or any robot to safely interact with humans, the robot has 
to be able to sense when a human is touching it. Domo has springs in 
its arms, hands and neck that can sense force and respond to it. If 
you grab its hand and push, the robot will move the way you want it 
to.

"By placing that spring in there, you get physical compliance that 
makes the whole body sort of springy, which makes it safer for human 
interaction," Edsinger said.  But if you apply too much force or move 
Domo's arms in the wrong direction, it voices its displeasure by 
saying "ouch."

If robots are going to be useful in the home, it's also important for 
them to have a humanoid form, so people will feel more comfortable 
around them.

Such assistive robots could be very useful in finding solutions to 
the impending health care crisis caused by the aging of the baby 
boomers, Edsinger said. Having help with simple tasks, such as 
getting a glass from a cabinet, could make a big difference for 
elderly or wheelchair-bound people.

The original work on Domo was funded by NASA, and the project is now 
supported by Toyota, which is interested in developing partner robots 
for the home. Another application is in assembly line production. The 
idea is that intelligent robots could work together with people to 
make workers more productive and save manufacturing jobs from being 
sent overseas, says Edsinger.

Although a life of leisure enabled by robots who perform all manual 
labor is still securely in the realm of science fiction, Brooks says 
he can foresee a future where robots specialized for different 
functions help out with household chores.

"I don't think there's going to be one Rosie the robot doing 
everything in the home," said Brooks. "It's more likely to be a team 
of robots doing different things."

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Written by Anne Trafton, MIT News Office