BABYBOT

BabyBot, a robot modelled on the torso of a two-year child, is helping researchers take the first, tottering steps towards understanding human perception, and could lead to the development of machines that can percieve and interact with their environment. The researchers used BabyBot to test a model of the human sense of 'presense', a combination of senses like sight, hearing and touch. The work could have applications in robotics, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine perception. The research is being funded under the European Commission's FET (Future and Emerging Technologies) initiative of the IST programme, as part of the ADAPT programme .