'Chatting robot' will be a reality within a year

Washington, Mar 5 (UNI) Chatting robot? Researchers claim a robot that can converse with us just like our friends will be a reality in a year.

The one metre-high baby robot named 'iCub' will know how to pick up language skills and talk to humans, the Science Daily reported.

Professor Nehaniv and Professor Dautenhahn from the University of Hertfordshire's School of Computer Science, UK will conduct experiments in human and robot language interaction to enable the robot to converse with humans.

''iCub will take us a stage forward in developing robots as social companions. We have studied issues such as how robots should look and how close people will want them to approach and now, within a year, we will have the first humanoid robot capable to developing language skills,'' Professor Dautenhahn said.

Typical experiments with the iCub robot will include activities such as inserting objects of various shapes into the corresponding holes in a box, serialising nested cups and stacking wooden blocks. Next, the iCub will be asked to name objects and actions so that it acquires basic phrases such as ''robot puts stick on cube''.

''Our approach is that robot will use what it learns individually and socially from others to bootstrap the acquisition of language, and will use its language abilities in turn to drive its learning of social and manipulative abilities. Like a child learning by imitation of its parents and interacting with the environment around it, the robot will master basic principles of structured grammar, like negation, by using these abilities in context,''Professor Nehaniv said.

The research is in collaboration with an international consortium led by the University of Plymouth on ITALK (Integration and Transfer of Action and Language Knowledge in Robots).

The scientific and technological research developed during the project will have a significant impact on the future generation of interactive robotic systems within the next ten years and the leadership role of Europe in this area.

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