Learning by observing robots
“In a workshop, someone might look over the apprentice’s shoulder and say, You need to press a little harder on that narrow edge,” says Christian Hartl-Nesic, head of the Industrial Robotics group in Andreas Kugi’s team. “We wanted to find a way to let the robot learn [similarly],” he added.
As previously mentioned, the team did this by developing a special cleaning tool to help teach the robot; a sensor-impregnated sponge. Using this, human “teachers” used the sponge with force sensors and tracking markers to repeatedly clean the front edge of a sink.
“We generate a large amount of data from just a few demonstrations, which is then processed to help the robot understand what proper cleaning entails,” explains Christian Hartl-Nesic.