Robot understands human needs

Cornell University has invented robots that can predict human action with high accuracy.

This robot can not read human thoughts, but it can observe a person's movements and predict what to do next.

If the robot sees you with your hands on a cup of water, pour it in and lift it, it will know you are drinking. Even robots predict what you will do before your actions take place. In one experiment, a robot observes a person carrying a moving object toward the fridge, which immediately recognizes and helps the person open the refrigerator door.

Robot dedicated to serve the needs of customers. (Photo: SAXENA LAB)

When the robot sees you drinking a cup of coffee, it waits for the right time to pour into your cup. The robot knows that when you take the cup, put it on your mouth and then put it down. This prediction helps robots avoid mistakes.

The machine is equipped with a database of 120 3D videos of various human activities. By turning actions into the language of the robot, it can define many actions such as eating, drinking, cleaning.

When faced with a new situation, the robot will use the Microsoft Kinect 3D camera to compare its observations in the real world to what it learns from video.

Even if the robot sees action differently than the program is installed, it can still understand and predict what might happen next. This makes robots more useful than other robot programming machines.

However, the shortcoming of the robot is that if the prediction time is longer, it will predict less accurate. In one experiment, the robot was 82% accurate when it predicted one second of action, which is exactly 57% predicted for the next 10 seconds. But academics believe they will develop the predictability of the robot in the future.