Why do scientists want to teach robots to feel pain?

Robots have appeared in the world for a long time but their form and behavior still make us afraid. Two graduate students from London had a new idea for robots to feel pain and ensure their safety.

Currently, we are making walking and talking robots like humans and, more than expected, we can give robots a special human ability: to feel pain.

Researchers say this is a valuable initiative because obot rats who know how to feel pain protect themselves and those who work with them from pain. If the robot senses the threat to them, they will try to avoid it.

Johannes Kuehn, a member of the research team from the University of Hannover, Germany: "Pain is a system that helps protect us. When we avoid hurting ourselves, then we will not hurt ".

Sensors help robots feel pain.(Photo: BBC).

With that idea, Kuehn and his partner Sami Haddadin are designing "an artificial robot nervous system" for this purpose.

In order for the system to work, it needs to be equipped with sources that create pain like a fire or a knife and consider an appropriate reflex action. The duo are using the human nervous system for their inspiration.

They tested based on some ideas using robotic arms with a finger sensor that detects pressure and temperature. This arm uses a piece of robot tissue that simulates human skin to determine how much pain is felt and what to do next.

If the arm feels a slight pain, it will slowly shrink until the pain is gone and then return to the original task. For moderate pain, the arm shrinks more quickly, and depending on the pain threshold, the arm may stretch back to its previous position, or not. The extreme pain will cause the arm to return to lock mode until it receives help from the operator.

Ensuring safety for people is important, especially as more and more robots work alongside people in the coming years.If a robot is taught to recognize and respond to pain, it can alert people around , Kuehn and Haddadin said.

Getting learning robots is one of the tough challenges but it will help robots become smarter.

Fumiya Iida, a robot expert from Cambridge University, UK - who is not involved in the study, told the BBC: "Getting learning robots is one of the most difficult but extremely useful challenges because it will help robots become The process of learning involves experimenting and making mistakes, when children learn that falls make them hurt, they learn how to do it with more skills. "

This is not the first time researchers have decided to try to test humanization for robots . Earlier this year, the Pentagon's Advanced Defense Projects Agency, USA (DARPA), funded a project to teach robots how to "empathize" through giving them reading children's books. This is one of DARPA's projects to build robots that distinguish right from wrong.

Kuehn and Haddadin's work is still ongoing, but the couple has just presented their research at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation taking place in Stockholm, Sweden. If successful, this study could create more humanoid robots than ever before.