WHEN it comes to matching Star Wars, real world robotics experts have a bit to go before they can claim that these are the droids we've been looking for.
CSIRO’s Autonomous Systems Lab is making the most of today's May the-fourth-be-with-you Day (May 4), the biggest day on Star Wars fans' calendars, in looking at how advances in information and communications technology will see closer collaboration between robots and people in the future, and not necessarily in a galaxy far, far away.
Star Wars robots, particularly everyone’s favourite droids C-3POand R2D2, were advanced multi-skilled machines, with R2D2 able to do everything from help Luke Skywalker pilot his X-Wing fighter to the odd bit of espionage work.
Jonathan Roberts, director of CSIRO’s Autonomous Systems Lab, says the robots we make today are more focused and less multifunctional, such as the classic industrial robots used on manufacturing production lines.
University of Tokyo researchers made headlines last year when they unveiled a robot that would never lose a game of rock, paper, scissors, while closer to home RMIT University researchers developed the Joggobot, a "quadcopter" which flies alongside a jogger as a robotic training companion.
"The big difference between Star Wars robots and the robots we have today is the Star Wars robots are highly intelligent and can do lots of different tasks," Mr Roberts said.
Protocol droid and Star Wars star C3P0.
"Earth robots today are not so intelligent and are made for much more specific tasks.
"In those factories those robots are not that smart. If the car part didn’t actually turn up, they might still try and weld in that spot."
Mr Roberts, a self-described Star Wars junkie, understands the appeal of the George Lucas’s droids and why people want their robots to be as loyal as R2D2 and as handy as his golden mate, the protocol droid.
"I’m totally inspired by the whole droids in Star Wars thing," he said.
"I was seven when Star Wars came out. It was an inspiration to show that the droids in Star Wars could be used to help people."
Helping people is one of the key motivations in recent advances in robotics.
An elderly care facility in Osaka, Japan, uses a robot based on a three-year-old boy and able to speak 400 words to comfort dementia patients.
Similarly, researchers at the University of Southern California has developed the Bandit-II to guide paraplegics through rehabilitation exercises.
But Mr Roberts said there was a big difference between Honda’s famous Asimo robot, a metallic man which can shake hands or conduct an orchestra, and the intelligence of the fictional C-3PO.
"A lot of the fancy robots they have at these shows are still either pre-programmed to just do a few things, to either get up or run around," he said.
"If they are doing anything very smart, there is a human in a cupboard behind effectively remote controlling them."
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