Companion Robots a Current Application

Companion Robots

A Current Application of the Scientific Method: Experimentation and Progress in Companion Robots

The scientific method can often seem a rather pedantic and esoteric method of investigation, requiring more conscious and explicit divisions and a more plodding pace than innovation might seem to demand. Especially from a consumer standpoint, the rate at which new technologies and scientific investigation are rolled out seems impossibly distant from the many steps involved in the scientific method: identifying an issue or making an observation, hypothesizing a solution or explanation (or making several hypotheses), then testing, observing, modifying hypotheses, repeating….. When the average experience is simply that a new cell phone is needed every six months, the scientific method can seem largely separate from the way things actually progress.

In reality, however, innovation is happening faster and faster because the scientific method is being employed en masse by a wide array of academic research teams and departments, government agencies and offices, and of course the many private companies and for-profit corporations that develop products for us to buy. It is only through this abundant reliance on the scientific method that the products we purchase today and the innovations that ostensibly make our lives easier actually come into being. It is also through the scientific method that the products and innovations of tomorrow are being developed. Computers and cell phones might keep progressing at faster and faster rates, but entirely new technological tools and innovations -- things like companion robots -- are also being developed.

The new innovation that are being achieved through constant research allow for an examination of the scientific method at work, and a better understanding of its importance and its processes. This paper will examine five different though related experiments dealing with specific issues identified in the development of companion robots, which have a variety of potential uses in medical and therapeutic situations, as assistant devices in everything from office settings to the accomplishment of complex mechanical operations, and even simply as social companions in specific situations. From observation to hypothesis to experimentation and modification, it is through experiments that follow the scientific method that these robots will be developed to the point that they are truly functional and efficient at their planned tasks. Though they might seem to come out of nowhere by the tie they are actually introduced to the public on a large scale, the truth is found in the decades of following the scientific method that led to the many small advances used in companion robots.

The Scientific Method in Current Literature

One of the major issues that has been identified in regards to companion robots and their development towards a more truly useful and effective technological device has been the way in which human companions perceive and react to these robots (Dautenhan et al. 2005; Dautenhan et al. 2006; Walters et al. 2005). Scientists have noted that people react to companion robots in slightly different ways, yet also with some notable common trends. Identifying this as a "problem" or puzzle requiring a solution presented the impetus for several scientific investigations.

Several different non-mutually exclusive hypotheses were developed in attempts to explain at least partially the relationship between human subjects and companion robots, and so develop necessary characteristics and capabilities for companion robots that would make them more effective. One hypothesis was that the specific distance between a human subject and companion robot would have a major impact on the perceived usefulness and desirability of the robot companion (Walters et al. 2005). In another study, researchers set out with the hypothesis that human0like behavior might be deemed more suitable in certain situations, and set out to examine people's likes, dislikes, and general perceptions of different forms of companion robots (Dautenhan et al. 2005). Researchers also realized that the situation might be changed if the human subject utilizing the companion robot were seated, which could be the case in many medical and assistance applications, and it was hypothesized that operational differences would likely have an effect on preferences (Dautenhan et al. 2006).

All three of the experiments that resulted from these hypotheses presented potential partial solutions to the problem of designing companion robots in a way that would make them truly beneficial and useful to people. Before this research was conducted, it could have been possible that none of the identified factors would actually affect peoples' perceptions, or that people would have drastically different experiences based on distance, specific companion robot functions, and the type of behavior exhibited by the companion robots. It was only through experimentation, the next step in the scientific method, that answers to these questions were achieved.

All experiments must control certain variables; in the experiment regarding distance between the companion robots an human subject, all other factors in the relationship were controlled, and it was determined that most people kept a standard social distance form the robots, while a large minority took up closer positions indicating a less social relationship (Walters et al. 2005). By controlling some variables and measuring a wide array of independent and uncontrolled variables, other researchers determined that there were many factors influencing the perception of companion robots, and that human-like behavior was not actually strongly reacted to (Dautenhan et al. 2005). This same research team, by conducting a series of controlled experiments using different approaches, found that side approaches by robots were generally preferred by most seated human subjects receiving assistance from companion robots, with a certain female subset preferring frontal approaches, and without any regard to specific functions (Dautenhan et al. 2006).

Other research has also been conducted by applying the scientific method to other issues identified in the design of companion robots. By examining specific types of robot-robot and robot-human interactions, one research team was able to identify variables that appear to influence the ways in which companion robots and other self-organizing systems learn (Tani et al. 2005). Further research in more controlled settings is necessary to confirm some of the preliminary findings of this research, and more specific hypotheses need to be developed and tested, but this presents a very different yet highly necessary area of research (Tani et al. 2005).