Human-Inspired Robots

Robots are just now becoming part of our everyday life and being used by ordinary people. Developing a humanlike appearance must go hand in hand with increasing robots´ cognitive, social, and perceptive capabilities. In this installment of Trends & Controversies, Hiroshi Ishiguro and Minoru Asada present the ultimate imitation of a human´s appearance: an android. Humanlike robots must communicate clearly using natural language. Stuart Shapiro outlines natural language´s importance both as a practical way to communicate and a means of encouraging social interaction. Michael Thielscher presents the field of cognitive robotics, which investigates how robots can achieve greater autonomy and flexibility in such environments. Cynthia Breazeal has been a pioneer in developing socially interactive robots, and she presents the challenges and progress in this field. The growing field of socially assistive robotics is becoming an important testbed for human-inspired robots. Maja J. Mataric outlines the challenges of aiding people by means of social interaction rather than through physical contact alone. Finally, Hiroshi Ishida presents olfaction as a new sense for robots. The ability to recognize smells bring robots closer to humans