Animal training techniques teach robots new tricks: Virtual dogs take place of programming

The researchers recently presented their work at the international Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems conference. As robots become more pervasive in society, humans will want them to do chores like cleaning house or cooking. But to get a robot started on a task, people who aren't computer programmers will have to give it instructions. "We want everyone to be able to program, but that's probably not going to happen," said Matthew Taylor, Allred Distinguished Professor in the WSU School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. "So we needed to provide a way for everyone to train robots -- without programming."