Robots Learn Household Tasks by Watching Humans

Novel method developed by CMU researchers allows robots to learn in the wild. The robot watched as Shikhar Bahl opened the refrigerator door. It recorded his movements, the swing of the door, the location of the refrigerator and more, analyzing this data and readying itself to mimic what Bahl had done. It failed at first, missing the handle completely at times, grabbing it in the wrong spot or pulling it incorrectly. But after a few hours of practice, the robot succeeded and opened the door. "Imitation is a great way to learn," said Bahl, a Ph.D. candidate at the Robotics Institute (RI) in Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science.