This robot mimics human movements (and can even play the piano)

[MUSIC] It seems like every day we see another robot that is capable of doing superhuman things artificial intelligence, jumping over walls, climbing things. What if we could find a robot that was capable of doing small, gentle human tasks? Lifting a bottle, playing the piano. Well to talk about the future of robotics, I have Nelson Chang, the deputy division director of the robotics division at MITRE, and he's here to tell me all about the duel Robot system. Now Nelson you have the dogs the jewel robot system behind you. Tell me what was the idea of this robot? Why did you develop this robot? Okay, do arm robot was developed as a concept prototype And in contrast to traditional industrial robots, it consists of two seven axis robotic arms. So you have extra degrees of freedom the arm compared to traditional industrial robots. And in addition, we also design the human like robotic hand at each robot arm. So these hands actually function very similar to a human Hands can do you have by fingers like while we have. So basically you can adapt to different objects or different tools because human hands have multiple fingers. So given all the extra degrees of freedom, all the extra fingers, the dual arm robot can actually perform more tasks than traditional industrial robots. And you mentioned the hands there, we can see the little the fingers moving on the ends of, of the robotic arms. How I think of the regular robot is something that might lift a box or do a repetitive movement as you say working with tools. What kinds of objects can this robot hold? Does it work like a regular human hand? Well, this robotic hands is very different from traditional industrial robots. So the industrial robots actually use application specific grippers, which are often two fingers or three fingers. And instead of four darts, you have five fingers. So you can grasp most of the daily objects point so you can grasp, like regular bottles of different shapes, shapes, or Writing utensils or even some small electronic components with the same hand, we don't have to switch to different application specific grippers. So that's the benefit of having probably called more universal robot object interface, which is the human like robots. And so that's the benefit of having this exact design. And Tommy we've obviously got very fluid movements of the robot behind you. But tell me about the kind of, I guess the intelligence of the robot what it's capable of doing and do you have plans to sort of develop that further beyond just the physical hardware, what it's capable of lifting and holding, do you To say that it could be an autonomous robot in the future, for example, Yes. Okay, Curran. This is still an early stage of the concept demo. So we have to be honest that we haven't incorporate too much of the AI or sensing capabilities into this platform. However, if you look at the hat, there are actually a vision sensors attached to it. And here at issue, we also have our own tactile sensing technologies. So in the years to come, especially this year, we'll be putting those sensors into use, and we'll also incorporate Internally other research group within HP to put our sensing, processing or sensing recognition technologies onto this platform. So one thing we definitely will do is we'll definitely be putting vision into it. So maybe we can expect in the future that dogs will be able to pick up things by the vision. So he kind of adapt with different positions. And in the future also look for it to work with external partners. So we will be working with universities in Taiwan and also abroad. So more events AI technologies onto this platform. So we do have plans to actually make more smarter than it used to be. And you mentioned that this is a prototype, its early development, and you've got a lot of ideas for the future of what you could use the dual-arm robot for. What do you imagine in an ideal world, maybe in a couple of years' time, where would you really love to see the dual-arm robot? What applications would you really love to see? Okay, that we can actually put on two ways. The first way is is there are definitely some tasks involve human risking their lives, for instance, other high risk occupations. So for those application, we definitely believe robots will be very useful for that. Those scenarios. That can include for instance let's say for them making COVID-19 vaccines, or they are doing some inspection in a biohazard environment, robots can do that. Also for traditional industry, you can work in high temperature environment or high voltage environment, or Environment with chemical substances. So that the best definitely the field that we would like to robots to go in and that should be very well suited for those tasks, especially for a child that still require human hands. And the other way we are expecting, is the regular applications for instance. And believe everyone can have seen robots working kitchen. So robotic chef is one example of regular applications which is not only interesting also very useful, especially when it's It's hard to find good neighbors these days. Each is obviously at the forefront of robotics technology. Where do you see the future of robotics in 10, 20, maybe even 50 years? How do you think there'll be incorporated in our everyday lives? Okay I would like to say they put it this way, even for today they are something similar to robots in everyday home. In everyone's phone, for instance, you got those washing machines, laundry machines, and also there are cleaners in almost every house currently, So they're already probably called automating machines in everyone's house. In the near future, we'll be putting a lot of intelligence onto it. So to make it more adaptable to how human use them, we can actually view that as one kind of robots and from the other from his robot with, Similar capabilities to humans points a robot with arms, etc. He will come to the other in the industrial field First, it will first be using the business art and data will gradually gradually move into our daily lives as the cause become, become slower. So that's why we have in mind for now, but after quite optimistic in the future that maybe within the next decade, robots will definitely be really close to our daily lives. That's something that we live in. Well, we've talked about all the amazing things that this robot can do in terms of industrial applications, but can't help but notice you've got a keyboard there in front of the robot. Can we get a bit of a music demo? Maybe [MUSIC] [MUSIC] Well, I never thought I would see a robot playing me the piano but I guess CES brings us weird and wonderful things every year. Thanks so much for tuning in guys. Stay tuned to CNET for plenty more from CES.