This development will not only have applications in the home, either. The same learning process can readily be applied to many other tasks in the industry, like polishing surfaces, painting, sanding, or applying adhesives.
“Capturing the geometric shape of a washbasin with cameras is relatively simple,” says Professor Andreas Kugi from the Automation and Control Institute at TU Wien. “But that’s not the crucial step. It is much more difficult to teach the robot which type of movement is required for which part of the surface. How fast should the motion be? What’s the appropriate angle? What’s the right amount of force?” he added.
This is the same way human beings learn new tasks, especially skills like trades.