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Collaborating with the other research fields may bring about enormous
progress in robotics. Therefore, this research has been performed with
animal psychologists, Professor Hiroshi Kimura and the researchers in his
laboratory. |
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Robots are recently growing popular with advances in robotics. Therefore,
requirements for robots are changing. Industrial robots can operate with
high accuracy and repeatability. However, operating these robots is difficult
for people without technical knowledge or skill. Therefore, personal robots
that are easy for anyone, even older people, to operate are anticipated.
It is necessary for personal robots to have new functions to live symbiotically
with humans. We then clarify the basic factors necessary for a symbiotic
relationship between humans and robots. A lot of research has been conducted on robots with human-like faces that can communicate with humans. We can easily operate robots through communication. Some researchers have studied robot-assisted therapy, which has been evaluated according to questionnaire data. However, evaluating human-robot interaction is difficult due to a number of uncertain factors in human communication and the variety of personalities. Therefore, as a first step, we have been studying interaction between rats, less sophisticated animals, and robots. We clarify basic factors necessary for a symbiotic relationship between rats and robots based on animal psychology, which has contributed to clarifying human psychology. We then have been conducting interaction experiments between rats and robots. We hope our studies contribute, as well as animal psychology, to clarifying the factors necessary for the symbiosis between humans and robots. |
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| 1998年 |
・We developed WM-4 that has the ability of various stimulus presentation, and it's performance is almost equal to those of a mature rat.
・We succeeded in teaching a rat food feeding area. |
| 1999年 |
・We developed WM-5 that can act in the tradition of rat's mounting activity. ・We looked see that WM-5's mounting activity arouses interests in WM-5 among rats. |
| 2000年 | ・The rats were interested in the robot with rat's smells more than without them. |
| 2001年 | ・The rats were trained to call the robot to obtain food. |
| 2002年 |
・We developed WM-6 that has two levers. ・We developed the experimental setup to perform the interaction experiment between rat and robot for many hours. ・The robot was able to control the rat's behavioral cycle by changing its behavior. |
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Mental Modeling of Creature Digest Movie (Mpeg Movie 38,400KB) |
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We developed an experimental setup as shown in FIg 2. The interaction experiment between the rat and the robot is performed in the "Open-field". "Open-field" is used in an animal study including the animal psychology. In our "Open-field", "Water Feeder", "Food Feeder", "Rearing Sensor", "Grooming Sensor", "Battery Exchanger" are located as shown.And upper two meter of the bottom, "fixed canera" for obtaining whole area image and "tracking camera" for obtaining local area image are located . The followings are details of the equipments. |
| Fig2.Experimental Setup |
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The food feeder consists of a microcontroller PIC and a stepping motor. This machine releases a food pellet into a plastic bowl on the field when it receives an instruction sent from the PC. |
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The water feeder consists of a microcontroller PIC and a servo motor. This machine extends a mouthpiece connected to a water bottle into the field for three seconds when it receives an instruction sent from the PC. During these seconds only, the rats can obtain water. |
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The battery exchanger consists of a microcontroller PIC, electromagnets for attracting the batteries, 2-DOFs arm and a charger. This machine automatically exchanges the battery on the robot in the experimental field without human intervention. WM-6 moves to the front of the battery exchanger when the battery on the robot is running low. The PC then sends an instruction to the battery exchanger. After that, the arm attracts the dead battery on the robot via electromagnets and exchanges it for a fully charged battery on the charger. |
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The tracking camera consists of compact CCD camera with a magnifying lens and the 2-DOFs camera mount. The focal length of a lens is 16[mm], and takes a image of locoregional area in the "Open-field" in detail. This equipment tracks the rat based on the point of rat derived by fixed camera image and takes a image of whole area in the "Open-field". |
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The grooming sensor consists of a square board 200 [mm] on each side, a base and a beam with a strain gage. One end of the beam is placed on the base, and the other end supports the board. Each strain gage is connected to an amplifier and the output of the amplifier is connected to an AD conversion board on the PC. The grooming detecting software module installed in the PC measures the voltage on the AD board and then performs FFT. Thus, this module detects grooming by the power spectrum. |
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The rearing sensor consists of photo-interrupters placed on the wall, and they are controlled by two microcontrollers. The photo-interrupters are intercepted by the rat during it is rearing. The microcontrollers then detects rat's rearing and send that to the PC. |
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We developed an experimental system as shown in Fig. 3. The equipments can be classified in the following categories;"equipments for stimulus presentation"and "measurement equipments of rat's actions". First, "equipments for stimulus presentation" includes "Food Feeder" "Water Feeder" "Battery Exchanger".These equipments communicate with Control PC using radio communication device named Bluetooth and operate under an command of the Control PC. Secondly, "measurement equipments of rat's actions" includes "Rearing Sensor" , "Grooming Sensor" , "CCD Camera". "Rearing Sensor" and "Grooming Sensor" communicate with Control PC by the same token and transmit measuring result to the Control PC. The CCD Camera image is manipulated by real-time image processor on the Control PC. |
| Fig3.Experimental System |
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Software which automatically controls WM-6 and the experimental setups
is installed on the PC. This software consists of some software modules
involving image processing module, operation generator module, robot controller
module and device controller module. This PC has two Bluetooth communication
units which support two-way communication with WM-6 or setups. Therefore,
this PC automatically performs the interaction experiments and saves data
without human intervention. The control PC has an image processing board, and is capturing the images from the CCD camera. Through the board, the image processing module computes the gravity points of the rat and the robot respectively (Fig. 6). The operation generator module generates the motion of WM-6 and the operation of the experimental setups based on the operational patterns which were programed, according to parameters such as the robot’s position, rat’s position and the states of each lever on the robot and the battery voltage of the robot. The algorithm for accelerating the rat’s learning speed is included in this module. The robot controller module controls the motion of WM-6 by controlling the directions and the velocities of each motor according to the distance and angle. |
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| Fig4.Image Processing |
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| WM(Waseda Mouse) Series | |
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| WM-6 (2005) | WM-8 (2007) |
| WOC(Waseda Omnidirectional Carrier) Series | |
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| WOC-1 (2006) | |
| WR(Waseda Rat) Series | |
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| WR-1 (2007) | WR-2 (2008) |
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| WR-3 (2009) | |
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In future work, we would like to develop new rat-robots with additional
functions, such as voice communication, or arm for grooming. We will then
try to train rats to these robot’s functions. We believe that this
robot's ability to autonomously show its functions is one basic factor
necessary for a symbiotic relationship between creature and robots. And we would like to develop a new system which can measure physiological changes in the rat and recognize the rat's emotions. This will enable us to develop a more suitable robot for symbiosis. Through these kinds of experiment, interaction experiments between rats and robots, we would like to create a model of symbiosis between creatures including humans, and robots. We will perform more interaction experiments and approach the creature-robot symbiosis step by step. |
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| A part of this study was conducted at the Humanoid Research Institute (HRI), Waseda University. The authors would like to express their thanks to Okino Industries LTD, OSADA ELECTRIC CO.LTD, SHARP CORPORATION, Sony Corporation, Tomy Company LTD and ZMP IMC.We also would like to express our thanks to Solid Works Corp., Advanced Research Institute for Science and Engineering of Waseda University and Prof. Hiroshi Kimura for their supports of our studies. |