Adaptable robots 'on their way' to the home - BBC News

Researchers have developed robots that learn to live with damaged parts in less than a minute, instead of the many hours needed by traditional self-learning systems. The system paves the way for robots to be used in a wide variety of settings, coping with damage that occurs in the real world. Possible applications include robots looking after the elderly, rescuing earthquake victims or doing housework. We marvel at the robots we see in films: some try to wipe out humanity, such as Ultron in the recent Avengers film, while others like C-3PO in Star Wars are helpful albeit slightly annoying. But they are the still the stuff of science fiction, partly because if the slightest thing goes wrong with a real-life robot it usually stops working altogether.