‘Want to get robots into the real world’

VISAKHAPATNAM: Assistant professor of robotics at Oregon State University, Heather Knight, said robots will soon start playing an emotionally significant role in no time, given the advances in robotics.
“I like systems in which people and robots work together because humans are still very creative and very good at understanding what matters to other people.At the same time, robots are adept at processing large troves of information and doing repetitive things,” said Knight.
Speaking to ToI on the sidelines of the TECH-2017 conference on Sunday, Knight spoke about her research on human-robot interaction, non-verbal machine communications and non-anthropomorphic social robots. “It will take no time before the robots start playing an emotionally significant role. When my advisor of post-doctoral fellowship created a single access door using robotic technology about a decade ago, people were in awe of robots judging them and giving them entry,” said Knight.
Knight said robots need to understand the ways in which our social environment is structured in order for them to be deployed in a human environment.
“Social robotics works on making the robots understand human emotions and the way we communicate collaboratively. It is not fully replicating the way we interact, but it is like finding some of the key features that make it easier to get things done,” she said.
Dr Knight elaborated on how industries are leveraging the services of robots. “One of the things that does not make them safe right now is they do things in ways we cannot predict,” said Knight.
She also explained about how the robots are helping the autistic kids learn social skills. “Using robots is like a triangle- a robot and human working together to help another human. The combo can create magic,” sge said Dr Knight.