Robots will learn emotions from humans

 The era of entertainment robots is over and today it is possible to develop robots that can help in production, in medical applications, in housework, in the human-computer interface, and in applications for human well-being * Projects to develop learning robots in Europe and Japan * The secret lies in neural networks and learning software

Avi Blizovsky

Building robots, and especially of course the brains of the shocked computer, that can communicate emotionally with humans is the goal of a European project led by British scientists. The project, known as Feelix Growing, is a study in which 25 robotics experts, developmental psychologists and neuroscientists from 6 countries participate. The coordinator of the project, Dr. Lola Canamero, from the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom, writes that the goal of the research is to build robots that will learn from humans and respond in an appropriate social and emotional way. The project received a budget of 2.3 million euros and will last for about three years.
"The emotional world of humans is very complex but we only respond to a few simple cues, things that we consciously do not notice or notice, such as how someone moves.
As part of the project, a series of robots will be built that can use sensors to receive input from the humans communicating with them and adjust their behavior accordingly. According to Cannamero, the action of the robots, which act according to the behavior expressed within them by the programmers and the patterns of movement and the emotional state of the world around them. The robots themselves are simple machines - often standard "off the shelf" machines. The most interesting aspect of the project is of course the software. "We used very simple robots as hardware, and for some of these machines we even built substantial heads ourselves," Cannamaru said. "We were mainly interested in programming and developing behavioral abilities, especially in relation to emotional and social interactions with humans" she added.
According to her, the robots will learn from the feedback they will receive from humans. "It's mainly about behavioral feedback and touch," she said, adding that it means feedback in response to touch and emotional feedback through positive reinforcement, such as kind words, nice behavior or helping the robot do something if it gets stuck." The university's research partners build different robots that focus on different emotional interactions.
These robots will receive the feedback through simple video cameras, voice input, touch sensors and sensors that can operate from a distance, to receive sensory inputs from a person who is a certain distance from the robot. 
"One of the things we are going to use to discover facial expressions and movement patterns is an artificial neural network. The use of these networks is done because they are particularly useful for adapting to changing inputs - and in this case discovering patterns of behavior, voice, movement, etc. "Neural networks learn patterns from examples of observations" says Kanemaru.
One of the areas that those robots will study will be human movement. According to the researchers, the movement tells us a lot about the emotional state. The physical proximity between the human and the robot, and the frequency of contact between them are things the researchers hope to study to discover the necessary emotional states. The robots will not try to locate emotional states such as disgust, but will focus on states such as anger, joy, loneliness, emotions that affect the way the robot will have to behave.

embedded behavior"It is important to detect when the person is angry because the robot did something wrong or if the person is lonely and the robot needs to cheer him up. Therefore, we advance in the emotions relevant to a baby robot that needs to grow up and help humans in their day-to-day lives." Kanemaru said. The conclusion is that you need to know how to program these robots in the first place. One of the first robots built in the project was designed to illustrate natural behavior - a common thing in controlling birds and some mammals at birth. "They cling to the first object they see when they are born, usually the mother, and that's what makes them follow her. We built a prototype of a robot that could follow humans and adapt to the way humans interact with it. The robot will move closer or further away depending on the person's feelings towards it.
According to her, the robots that can adapt to the behavior of humans will be required if the machines will play a role in human society, such as helping the disabled. At the end of the project, two robots will be built that will combine the different aspects of the machines that will be developed all over Europe.
The other partners in the project, besides the University of Hartfordshire, are the National Center for Scientific Research in France, the University of Cargy-Pontvaise, the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne in Switzerland, the University of Portsmouth, the Institute of Communication and Computer Systems in Greece, the Entertainment Robotics company from Denmark and the Sass Aldebaran Robotics company from France.

A parallel study in JapanAt the same time, WASED University in Japan is building a humanoid robot. In a lecture he gave at the University of Hertfordshire, Shoji Hashimoto from the Humanoid Robotics Institute at Wased University said that the era of robots has already begun and that we need to invest efforts to upgrade the robotics industry in several areas not only for entertainment but also to help in production, in medical applications, in housework, in human interface -Computer, and applications for human well-being. "The era of entertaining robots is over. We are entering a new era in robotics where technology will allow us to build "partners".