Robots that learn from experience

Specialist robots will learn how to act intelligently in real-world environments, supporting security guards or care home assistants, in a multi-million Euro project. The aim of the research is to create mobile robots that are able to operate intelligently and independently, based on an understanding of 3D space and how this space changes over time, from milliseconds to months. The £7.2 million STRANDS collaborative project led by the School of Computer Science at the University of Birmingham (UK) involves security company G4S Technology Ltd and the Academy of Ageing Research, an Austrian care provider, where the technology developed throughout the four year venture will be tested. Funded by the European Union's Seventh Framework programme, the project also features the UK's University of Lincoln's School of Computer Science and the University of Leeds' School of Computing. Together with other partners, the researchers will develop the software to process the sheer volume of experiences the robots will encounter, allowing them to find meaning and structure in the variations they encounter every day. Dr Nick Hawes, Senior Lecturer in Intelligent Robotics at the University of Birmingham, will coordinate the eight sites in the project, and also lead the research on enabling a robot to exploit the patterns it finds in its experience. He said: "Recent advances in robotics and artificial intelligence have enabled mobile robots to operate intelligently in predictable environments for limited periods of time.