Robots – up close and personal

Personal Robotics is an area focused on developing robots for common interface through Human Robotic Interactions (HRIs) for the general public. The objective is to automate certain tasks in home or workplaces by making human life more productive and enjoyable. To date one of the most successful examples is the Robotic Vacuum Cleaner (Roomba). This is a “Service Robot” that can clean the floor autonomously as you go shopping or work. Other famous devices are the Social Interactive Robots (SIRs) such as AIBO the Sony robotic dog. These are robots mainly designed for entertainment and education purposes. Usually SIRs are equipped with several sensors that receive inputs from a human user and react according to the programmed electronics or embedded software. The types of output responses vary according to the robot’s objective but it’s common to have combinations of behaviours such as: walking around your house, displaying sounds, playing songs, talking to you, checking the weather forecast, sending emails or even recognising certain commands through speech recognition.
There’s a continuous interest in Personal Robotics as some of these first robotics prototypes start demonstrating therapeutic uses. For example, latest studies show that Robotics researchers are using Socially Assistive Robots (SARs) with children that suffer from autism syndrome. By automating a set of gestures or behaviours a robot can mediate human-human interaction and through repetitive cycles which are extremely exhaustive for a nurse to perform (e.g. 2 hours per day) the robot is able to motivate the child and to convey behaviours that can allow the child to perceive humans in different ways.
There’s also an increasing interest in using some of these robots for example with elderly people. Dementia, isolation, depression and lack of human interaction are just a few examples of problems that are common in elderly care. In this domain SARs can be used to deliver cognitive assistance, entertainment, supervision/communication and even companionship. Examples in this area range from robotic animals (that look and react just like real animals) e.g. baby seals and cats, to robots of in many different forms and sizes that can dance, play songs, remind residents about their medications, shopping lists or household tasks. There’s also a dynamic path that pulls such devices into global markets for more regular public use, as they are perceived as curious, or cute as well as being cheap, easy to use and updatable.
The first generation of robots is likely to be small, cheap, and task specific, rather than ones that do everything. This specialization is largely due to hardware costs and the complexity of the tasks they are intended to perform. However, there is a trend towards robotics firmware being updated according to your specific needs. Hardware upgrades will also be possible, though I reckon that the product life cycle of Personal Robots could become shorter than personal computers. As costs go down, personal robots will become important engines for the global economy.