Qbo Robot Sees Its Own Reflection and Recognizes It

The Qbo robbot, by creator Francisco Paz is able to use recognition software in conjunction with pre-programmed responses, to recognize its own image.

In the video, Qbo transits to the "Object Recognition" state from its internal state machine, to learn to recognize its mirror image, as if it were a regular object. Technically, how does Qbo do it?

The "Object Recognition" state is implemented to execute simultaneously different ROS nodes: one responsible for the head and base movement; another to select an object from the image using the stereoscopic vision; another to recognize objects or learn new ones. The object recognition algorithm uses "SURF" descriptors and the "Bags of Words" approach (through the OpenCV library), and stores images in Qbo's internal storage system.

Qbo has several stored answers and behaviors in an internal knowledge base, that we upgrade as the projects evolves, to make questions or orders to Qbo such as "What it this? or "Do this". Qbo interprets the object "Myself" as a an ordinary object, for which it has special answers in its internal knowledge base such as "Woah. I'm learning myself" or "Oh. This is me. Nice". Qbo selects its reflection in the mirror in the image that he sees using the stereoscopic vision, and one of our engineers interacts (speaks) to him so that Qbo can learn to recognize himself as another object. For direct interaction, Qbo uses the open-source software Julius for speech recognition (in the video, you see how Qbo receives the order to turn around, and he responds to it by moving its base 90 degrees), and Festival for voice synthesis.

For more information:http://www.bionicme.com/forums/robot-groundhog-day

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Robot
• Artificial
• Intelligence

[WEMS20]

At 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29, 1997 Skynet becomes self-aware.

[BatsintheBelfrey]

Well, this is it. Were all dead. Nice knowing you everyone!

[Zodicz]

is it just me who love the talk xD

[bandetx]

@55peedy

No. It will sit in front of the mirror for 10 years and not recognize it as itself. It has to be told it is itself, that is not self-aware. It cannot learn on its own, it can only be taught, so it is about as intelligent as a book. Contains a lot of information, and is not intelligent at all.

[mrluke93]

Dec 1, 2011 Qbo robot becomes self-aware. I think he will be easier to take down than Skynet...

[cave13]

people think robots is going to take over the world.. they cant they only know what we program them to know..yes i know about self leaning robots but its still to eairly to get them doing what humans do

[boonexy]

i mean, you can replicate this pretty easily with the way we can scan things today. Recognizing "itself" is simply a comparison. I mean simple camera software can recognize all kinds of things in images. still cool, just saying not too advanced.

[TheVirulentoblivion]

I for one welcome our new overlords. The guy in the back kinda looks like Joker, Maybe I won't have to spend all day computing Pi though..

[MacktheFilet]

@LordCandy Look at the other comments, genius. Obviously other people can't be bothered to read. Nice trying to make yourself look smart though.

Your comment, however, exudes pure brilliance. Nice use of punctuation. Amazing how close I was to the description without reading it, right? Now look at all the other comments talking about robots taking over, and you're going to give me shit?

[LordCandy]

@MacktheFilet Thanks CPT Obvious... lol.. I love people trying to sound smarter than everyone else. They even tell you how simple it is in video info. /golfclap