Robot Discovers Objects on its Own

Robots can continually discover and refine their understanding of objects, say researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute. The Lifelong Robotic Object Discovery (LROD) process, developed by the research team, enabled a two-armed, mobile robot to use color video, a Kinect depth camera, and non-visual information to discover more than 100 objects in a home-like laboratory, including items such as computer monitors, plants and food items.
Normally, the CMU researchers build digital models and images of objects and load them into the memory of HERB — the Home-Exploring Robot Butler — so the robot can recognize objects that it needs to manipulate.

With the team’s implementation of LROD, called HerbDisc, the robot now discovers these objects on its own.

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