Courtesy / UMinho
Project by João Gaspar Cunha envisions a new generation of neuroadaptive robotic partners.
João Gaspar Cunha is a PhD student in Electronic and Computer Engineering at the University of Minho.
Developed a robot, in a study entitled “The neuroevolution of collaborative decision-making in robotic assistants”. And it was Darwin who inspired the “brain” of his robot.
The project uses an evolutionary algorithm, inspired by the theory of evolution of Charles Darwin, to automatically generate the “brain” of the robot.
The system is not programmed or trained directly – evolves internal architectures, progressively selecting the most effective ones for collaboration with humans.
“In the beginning, simple and barely functional structures are generated, which are refined throughout the evolutionary process until the collaborative and complementary behaviors that we want emerge. In this way, the robot starts to decide when it should act, when it should complement human action and when it should remain inactive, allowing for more natural collaboration in shared tasks”, describes João Gaspar Cunha, in a statement sent to ZAP.
The investigation aims to new generation of neuroadaptive robotic partnerscapable of fluid, human-like collaboration.
The project applies principles of neuroevolution and dynamic neural field theory to create adaptive and interpretable systems, capable of deciding when to help and when to act autonomously in shared tasks, explains the author.
The 28-year-old has participated in conferences and published articles in international scientific journals. Now it has been awarded, thanks to this study: it won the “Best Innovation in HRI NeuroDesign Award”, at the international conference “IEEE RO-MAN”, held in the Netherlands. The award distinguishes pioneering projects in human-robot interaction.
