Learning About Ourselves from Baby Robots

 Robotics  

Pierre-Yves Oudeyer and his group at the European Research Council have created Poppy, an open-source 3D printed humanoid robot designed to help us learn more of what it means to be human.

What can baby robots tell us about ourselves? Mysteries of human cognition, like the mechanisms of curiosity or the origins of languages, are starting to be unveiled through experiments with robots that can learn by themselves.

In the TEDx video above, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, research director and laureate of the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) program, introduces the Poppy open-source 3D printed humanoid robot made at Inria, allowing every lab, school or FabLab to join this open science exploration.

Following an interdisciplinary approach, where computer and robotics sciences dialog with biological and human sciences, Oudeyer has been exploring how new skills can be self-organized and acquired in lifelong learning.

In particular, he has extensively studied how robots can be endowed with artificial curiosity, and how this can impact our understanding of information seeking and development in humans. He also studied how populations of robots can invent their own language, and how this can enlight us on the origins of human language.

"I consider cognitive development as a complex dynamical system which needs to be understood through systemic thinking, leveraging tools and concepts from human sciences, living sciences, and mathematical/computational sciences."

His Flowers Team at Inria, studies mechanisms that can allow robots and humans to acquire autonomously and cumulatively repertoires of novel skills over extended periods of time.

This includes mechanisms for learning by self-exploration, as well as learning through interaction with peers, for the acquisition of both sensorimotor and social skills.  Sensorimotor skills include locomotion, affordance learning, active manipulation. Interactive skills include grounded language use and understanding, adaptive interaction protocols, and human-robot collaboration.

Both the software and hardware for Poppy are available under an open source licence for academics, artists and geeks. To make it easy to repair and duplicate,Poppy only uses off-the-shelf components (motors and electronics) and limbs that can be printed with regular 3D printing services.

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Physical interaction with Poppy's full body compliance and an articulated torso allows for closer social and physical interaction with the robot, according to the development team. Social interaction can also done with Poppy's cameras, microphones and LCD touchscreen.

Poppy’s humanoid body has a morphology modeling human skeleton: bended legs, multi-articulated trunk, soft body. This increases robustness, agility and stability during the walking.

The overall materials needed to build your own Poppy robot costs around 7500€ (including motors, electronics and 3D printed parts). The developers hope the community will find ways to build and use even cheaper solutions.

According to Oudeyer, "I consider cognitive development as a complex dynamical system which needs to be understood through systemic thinking, leveraging tools and concepts from human sciences, living sciences, and mathematical/computational sciences. Further, I consider algorithms and robotics models as powerful scientific languages to express theories of cognitive development in the living."





SOURCE  TEDx Talks

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