Ethology, in particular the study of dog behaviour, could provide important insights in the development of synthetic companions or embodied robots. Although Reto U. Schneider listed our work with AIBO robot among the maddest experiments in science, those observations have clearly established the limitation of that robotic pet when it comes to interactions with conspecifics (Kubinyi et al 2004). Interestingly, both dogs and AIBO can be taught by clicker training (Kaplan et al 2002), however, both adults and children seem to find the AIBO less interesting as they disrupt playing with this toy earlier in comparison to a dog puppy (Kerepesi et al 2005). Actually, building robotic pets that mimic real animals may not be the way forward.

We aim to develop a new interdisciplinary science, ethorobotics, that is interested in whether and how the control and dynamics of animal behaviour can be utilized to build better robots which however are not copycats of real animals. We hope that detailed modelling of the social behaviour of the dog could advance also the field of robotics. But we do not want to replace pet dogs by building robots, these two creatures should play different functions in our lives. 

 

Further reading

Kaplan, F., Oudeyer, P.-Y., Kubinyi, E., Miklósi, Á. 2002. Robotic clicker training. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 38: 197-206. (pdf)

Kubinyi, E., Miklósi, Á., Kaplan, F., Gácsi, M., Topál, J., Csányi, V. 2004. Social behaviour of dogs encountering AIBO, an animal-like robot in a neutral and in a feeding situation. Behavioural Processes, 65: 231-239. (pdf)

Kerepesi, A., Kubinyi, E., Jonsson, G.K., Magnusson, M.S., Miklósi, Á. 2006. Behavioural comparison of human-animal (dog) and human-robot (AIBO) interactions. Behavioural Processes, 73: 92-99. (pdf)

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