World Watch
LATITUDE
ROBOTS ARE GETTING SMARTER AND MORE MOBILE ALL THE TIME — BUT CAN WE MAKE THEM CROWD SAVVY? Making your way along a crowded sidewalk can be tricky, even for us humans. Imagine what it’s like for a robot. Pedestrians weave their way around other people in intricate, quickly calculated patterns, adjusting constantly for unpredictable and erratic behaviour. Then there are all those ingrained social conventions to follow. Not surprisingly, designing an autonomous robot with crowd- navigation capabilities has been challenging. Most robots have been either too cautious or too aggressive in crowds. (And—as any science fiction fan will tell you— we really want to avoid creating aggressive robots!) Recently, engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported a possible a breakthrough. Using reinforcement
-photo courtesy MIT
LOOK OUT, COMING THROUGH
A decidedly well-behaved MIT robot makes its way past dawdling humans.
learning (a type of machine learning), the MIT researchers trained robots to follow paths they adjust every tenth of a second. The approach so far has resulted in smooth robotic passages through crowds for 20 minutes at a time. The learning included adhering to conventions like passing oncoming pedestrians on the right. And not taking over the world.
50 | PEG SPRING 2018
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