Robots can be 'casually' programmed to carry out instructions

Robots, who need specific instructions to conduct a task, can also be programmed by casually talking to them, according to a new research.

Ashutosh Saxena, assistant professor of computer science at Cornell University is teaching robots to understand instructions in natural language from various speakers, account for missing information and adapt to the environment at hand.

The robot may have a built-in programming language with commands like find (pan); grasp (pan); carry (pan, water tap); fill (pan, water); carry (pan, stove) and so on. Saxena's software will translate the human sentences, such as "Fill a pan with water, put it on the stove, heat the water".

Saxena said that with crowdsourcing at such a scale, robots will learn at a much faster rate.

Saxena's robot, equipped with a 3-D camera, can scan its environment and identify the objects in it, using computer vision software that was previously developed in Saxena' lab and the robot has been trained to associate objects with their capabilities.