Humanoid robot trained for improved human-robot interactions

Engineers at the University of California San Diego trained the humanoid robot with simple dance routines and gestures - such as waving, high-fiving and hugging - while maintaining a steady gait on diverse terrains.

“Through expressive and more human-like body motions, we aim to build trust and showcase the potential for robots to co-exist in harmony with humans,” Xiaolong Wang, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, said in a statement. “We are working to help reshape public perceptions of robots as friendly and collaborative rather than terrifying like The Terminator.”

Wang and his team will present their work in a paper at the 2024 Robotics: Science and Systems Conference, which takes place between July 15 to 19 in Delft, Netherlands.

The humanoid robot has been trained on a diverse array of human body motions, enabling it to generalise new motions and mimic them.