Using humanoid robots to study human behavior

ways to program behavior in humanoid robots, and potentially in other machines and computer systems, based on how we “program” behavior in our fellow human beings. We have already demonstrated several simple behaviors, including juggling a single ball by paddling it on a racket, learning a folk dance by observing a human perform it, 1 drumming synchronized to sounds the robot hears (karaoke drumming), 2 juggling three balls (see Figure 1), performing a T’ai Chi exercise in contact with a human, 3 and various oculomotor behaviors. 4 Our current robot is DB (which stands for Dynamic Brain), a hydraulic anthropomorphic robot with legs, arms (with palms but no fingers), a jointed torso, and a head (see Figure 2a and www.erato.atr.co.jp/DB). DB was designed by the Sarcos company and the Kawato Dynamic Brain Project (www.erato.atr.co.jp) and was built by Sarcos (www.sarcos.com). The robot is approximately 1.85 meters tall, weighs 80 kg, and contains 25 linear hydraulic actuators an