Developmental robotics
Encyclopedia
Developmental Robotics sometimes called epigenetic robotics, is a methodology that uses metaphors from neural development
and developmental psychology
to develop the mind
for autonomous robot
s. The focus is on a single or multiple robots going through stages of autonomous mental development (AMD). Researchers in this field study artificial emotions, self-motivation, and other methods of self-organization
. The program that simulates the functions of genome
to develop a robot's mental capabilities is called a developmental program.
Different from traditional machine learning, some major features of developmental robotics are:
DevRob is related to, but differs from, evolutionary robotics
(ER). ER uses populations of robots that evolve over time, whereas DevRob is interested in how the organization of a single robot's control system develops through experience, over time.
DevRob is also related to work done in the domains of Robotics
, Artificial Life
.
The NSF/DARPA funded Workshop on Development and Learning was held April 5–7, 2000 at Michigan State University. It was the first international meeting devoted to computational understanding of mental development by robots and animals. The term "by" was used since the agents are active during development.
DevRob was explained in Weng et al. Autonomous mental development by robots and animals. Science 291:599-600, 2001. Its major uniqueness is the task nonspecificity concept of a new kind of program: developmental program (DP). A DP simulates the developmental functions of the "genome".
The first undergraduate courses in DevRob were offered at Bryn Mawr College
and Swarthmore College
in the Spring of 2003 by Douglas Blank and Lisa Meeden, respectively.
The first graduate course in DevRob was offered at Iowa State University
by Alexander Stoytchev in the Fall of 2005.
Neural development
Neural development comprises the processes that generate, shape, and reshape the nervous system, from the earliest stages of embryogenesis to the final years of life. The study of neural development aims to describe the cellular basis of brain development and to address the underlying mechanisms...
and developmental psychology
Developmental psychology
Developmental psychology, also known as human development, is the scientific study of systematic psychological changes, emotional changes, and perception changes that occur in human beings over the course of their life span. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to...
to develop the mind
Mind
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
for autonomous robot
Autonomous robot
Autonomous robots are robots that can perform desired tasks in unstructured environments without continuous human guidance. Many kinds of robots have some degree of autonomy. Different robots can be autonomous in different ways...
s. The focus is on a single or multiple robots going through stages of autonomous mental development (AMD). Researchers in this field study artificial emotions, self-motivation, and other methods of self-organization
Self-organization
Self-organization is the process where a structure or pattern appears in a system without a central authority or external element imposing it through planning...
. The program that simulates the functions of genome
Genome
In modern molecular biology and genetics, the genome is the entirety of an organism's hereditary information. It is encoded either in DNA or, for many types of virus, in RNA. The genome includes both the genes and the non-coding sequences of the DNA/RNA....
to develop a robot's mental capabilities is called a developmental program.
Different from traditional machine learning, some major features of developmental robotics are:
- Task-nonspecificity: Since it is difficult for the genome to predict what tasks the baby will learn and perform in his life, the developmental program is body-specific (species specific) but not task-specific.
- Environmental openness: Due to the task-nonspecificity, AMD must deal with unknown and uncontrolled environments, including various human environments.
- Raw sensors: AMD must directly deal with continuous raw signals from sensors (e.g., vision, audition and touch), since different tasks require different information in the sensors. Only raw signals have all.
- Online processing: At each time instant, what the machine will sense next depends on what the machine does now.
- Incremental processing: Acquired skills must be used to assist in the acquisition of new skills, as a form of scaffolding. This requires incremental processing.
DevRob is related to, but differs from, evolutionary robotics
Evolutionary robotics
Evolutionary robotics is a methodology that uses evolutionary computation to develop controllers for autonomous robots. Algorithms in ER frequently operate on populations of candidate controllers, initially selected from some distribution. This population is then repeatedly modified according to...
(ER). ER uses populations of robots that evolve over time, whereas DevRob is interested in how the organization of a single robot's control system develops through experience, over time.
DevRob is also related to work done in the domains of Robotics
Robotics
Robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation, structural disposition, manufacture and application of robots...
, Artificial Life
Artificial life
Artificial life is a field of study and an associated art form which examine systems related to life, its processes, and its evolution through simulations using computer models, robotics, and biochemistry. The discipline was named by Christopher Langton, an American computer scientist, in 1986...
.
History
Cresceptron (ICCV 1992, IJCV 1997) was the first published developmental learning method for detecting and recognizing a general object in a complex natural background based on a composite image view. It also segments the detected object from the complex natural background. Human-machine interactions through the sensory-end and the motor-end teach the Cresceptron, while the internal self-organization is fully autonomous.The NSF/DARPA funded Workshop on Development and Learning was held April 5–7, 2000 at Michigan State University. It was the first international meeting devoted to computational understanding of mental development by robots and animals. The term "by" was used since the agents are active during development.
DevRob was explained in Weng et al. Autonomous mental development by robots and animals. Science 291:599-600, 2001. Its major uniqueness is the task nonspecificity concept of a new kind of program: developmental program (DP). A DP simulates the developmental functions of the "genome".
The first undergraduate courses in DevRob were offered at Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....
and Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,500 students. The college is located in the borough of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia....
in the Spring of 2003 by Douglas Blank and Lisa Meeden, respectively.
The first graduate course in DevRob was offered at Iowa State University
Iowa State University
Iowa State University of Science and Technology, more commonly known as Iowa State University , is a public land-grant and space-grant research university located in Ames, Iowa, United States. Iowa State has produced astronauts, scientists, and Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, along with a host of...
by Alexander Stoytchev in the Fall of 2005.
Main Journals
- IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development: http://www.ieee-cis.org/pubs/tamd/
- AMD Newsletter: http://www.cse.msu.edu/amdtc/amdnl/
Main Conferences
- International Conference on Development and Learning: http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~triesch/icdl/
- Epigenetic Robotics: http://www.epigenetic-robotics.org/
- Developmental Robotics: http://cs.brynmawr.edu/DevRob05/
Academic institutions and researchers in the field
- FeelixGrowing Project: A European-funded project to study socio-emotional development in robots, humans, and non-human primates. See also its Wikipedia entryFeelix GrowingFeelix Growing is a research project, started on December 1, 2006, that is working to design robots that can detect and respond to human emotional cues. The project involves six countries and 25 roboticists, developmental psychologists and neuroscientists....
- Michigan State UniversityMichigan State UniversityMichigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...
-- Embodied Intelligence Lab - Sony Computer Science Laboratory, Paris, France
- INRIA FLOWERS team, France: Exploration, interaction and learning in developmental robotics
- University of Tokyo—Intelligent Systems and Informatics Lab
- Cognitive Robotics Lab of Juergen Schmidhuber at IDSIAIDSIAThe Swiss institute for Artificial Intelligence IDSIA was founded in 1988 by the private Dalle Molle foundation...
and Technical University of MunichTechnical University of MunichThe Technische Universität München is a research university with campuses in Munich, Garching, and Weihenstephan... - LIRA-Lab, University of Genova, Italy
- The University of Texas at Austin, UTCS Intelligent Robotics Lab
- RobotCub Project: A 5 years European founded project to study cognition with a robot like a two years old child
- Bryn Mawr CollegeBryn Mawr CollegeBryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....
's Developmental Robotics Project: research projects by faculty and students at Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr Colleges, Philadelphia, PA, USA - Jean Project: Information Sciences Institute of the University of Southern California
- Cognitive Robotics (including Hide and Seek) at the Naval Research Laboratory
- The Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics, University of MassachusettsUniversity of MassachusettsThis article relates to the statewide university system. For the flagship campus often referred to as "UMass", see University of Massachusetts Amherst...
Amherst, USA
Blogs and Other Links
- The Mental Development Repository: http://www.mentaldev.org
- Developing Intelligence: http://develintel.blogspot.com
- Developmental Robotics: http://developmentalrobotics.org : general information about developmental robotics