Shadows help robot AI gauge human touch
Researchers in the US have equipped a robot with an AI-driven vision system that enables it to recognise different types of touch via shadows.
The team from Cornell University installed a USB camera inside a soft, deformable robot that captures the shadow movements of hand gestures on the robot's skin and classifies them using machine-learning software. Known as ShadowSense, the technology evolved from a project to create inflatable robots that could help guide people to safety during emergency evacuations, for example through a smoke-filled building, where the robot could detect the touch of a hand and lead the person to an exit.
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Rather than installing a large number of contact sensors, which would add weight, complex wiring and would be difficult to embed in a deforming skin, the Cornell team took a counterintuitive approach and instead looked to computer vision.
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