Selfie-clicking robots to do complex tasks at home

The bots can operate in situations that are confusing to most other robots.

June 22, 2021 12:42 pm | Updated 12:53 pm IST

The new bots can operate in situations that are confusing to most other robots

The new bots can operate in situations that are confusing to most other robots

(Subscribe to our Today's Cache newsletter for a quick snapshot of top 5 tech stories. Click here to subscribe for free.)

Toyota's newly-developed robot can take selfies and record how it does tasks at home.

These new capabilities are designed to amplify, not replace, human abilities, says Max Bajracharya, VP, Robotics at Toyota Research Institute (TRI).

The bots can operate in situations that are confusing to most other robots. For example, TRI notes that transparent or reflective items found at home confuse robots. They get fooled by a glass table, shiny toaster or transparent cup as most robots are programmed to react to the objects in front of them without considering the context.

To overcome this, TRI is training it's robots to perceive the scene in 3D while also enabling it to detect objects and surfaces. Researchers are using large amounts of synthetic data to train the system to learn quickly from past failures.

Also Read | Samsung's new robot can serve you a drink

Using synthetic data also diminishes the need for time consuming, expensive, or impractical data collection and labeling, researchers reckon.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.