Robots are becoming more and more widely used for a number of different things today such as those used for manufacturing products, robotic vacuum cleaners, space robots, the list is quite long! But what robots haven’t been able to do, up until now, is to feel and react to pain.
You may be wondering why we would want robots to react to pain when surely the reason for using them is to protect humans from harm. Well, researchers from the Leibniz University of Hanover believe that in teaching robots to feel pain and respond appropriately they are effectively prolonging their shelf life.
Robots still need to be protected from being harmed just as humans do if we are to continue using them. One of the researchers working on the project, Johannes Kuehn strongly believes that robots should mimic the same reactions we as human do when encountering pain and a reflex controller could do just that.
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It is not the first time this type of idea has been implemented. Torsten Kroegar and team at Stanford and the University of Rome – La Sapienza created a robot five years ago that used a reflex controller to avoid collisions with people. Although it was effective in avoiding humans, it had no real concerns for its own safety and could certainly not react to any form of pain.
The new ‘pain feeling’ robots will be produced using robot tissue similar to that of human skin and will allow the researchers to decide what amount of pain should be felt at what time. The reflex controller would then react accordingly after determining if it felt a slight, moderate or extreme pain.
Protecting robots is essential if we are to continue using them for our own needs and safety. While enhancing technology and making breakthrough developments are what all scientists are trying to achieve, so is saving money and protecting the lives of all.
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