Special house for companion robot

A new companion robot has been designed by a team at Hertfordshire University as part of a European project, and it is “living” in a special house where researchers are studying how best to make it interact with humans.

The project is the first to investigate our reactions to a companion robot when it swaps from a robot body to a virtual form on a computer or even on a mobile phone. To do this information is transferred between the computer and the robot or even between robots, meaning one main companon robot can be joined by others. This is the first stage of a four year project in partnership with other European and international institutions. In the future, these kinds of domestic machines could be playing an important part in helping us round the home.