Imitation

Imitation of goal-directed Tasks

Baltazar grasping

A demonstration of a sequence of actions (video 1) is imitated by Baltazar (video 2).

Relevant publications:

• Unified framework for imitation-like behaviors. Francisco Melo, Manuel Lopes, José Santos-Victor and Maria Isabel Ribeiro. AISB - 4th International Symposium on Imitation in Animals and Artifacts, Newcastle, United Kingdom, April, 2007
• A Developmental Roadmap for Learning by Imitation in Robots. Manuel Lopes and José Santos-Victor. IEEE Transactions in Systems Man and Cybernetic - Part B: Cybernetics, vol. 37(2), 2007

Imitation of Arm Gestures

This experiment shows Baltazar mimicking human gestures(movements). While seeing a gesture performed by and human (video 1) the robot process the image (video 2) in order to extract the backgournd to be able to estimate the body, shoulder and hand position. In the end, using the visuo-motor map the system is able to mimic the gesture (video 3).

Relevant publications:

• Visual Learning by Imitation with Motor Representations. Manuel Lopes and José Santos-Victor. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics - Part B: Cybernetics, vol. 35, 2005
• Visual Transformations in Gesture Imitation. Manuel Lopes and José Santos-Victor. IEEE - International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA'03). Taipei, Taiwan, 2003