The human touch, in robots
Friday, January 21, 2011 - 11:32
in Psychology & Sociology
In 2005, when Martin Saerbeck was studying computer science at Bielefeld University in Germany, he programmed a service robot called BIRON. Mounted with a pan-tilt camera on top, BIRON was able to follow a human pointing gesture and focus on the object pointed at. On one occasion, however, BIRONs camera lost track of Saerbecks hand and the robot appeared to be sleeping or to have lost interest. Without thinking, Saerbeck waved his hand in front of BIRON and said "Wake up!"