Tri-Co Robot

A robot able to safely coexist and cooperate with people, other robots, and its environment, and read their intentions.

This research direction was proposed by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC); “Tri-Co” stands for Coexisting, Cooperative, and Cognitive. According to a 2017 introduction by Han Ding and colleagues in National Science Review, the NSFC launched an eight-year major research program on Tri-Co robots that year. “Coexisting” means the robot enters human living and working spaces in an inherently safe way; “cooperative” means it works with people or other robots through communication and interaction; “cognitive” means it can sense and predict the environment's and other agents' behavior and intent. Research topics include rigid-flexible-soft hybrid structures, multimodal sensing and biosignal-based human-robot interaction, and multi-robot swarm intelligence, aimed at applications such as precision manufacturing, rehabilitation assistance, and inspection and rescue. Its concerns overlap heavily with today's human-robot collaboration and embodied AI.

ExampleA rehabilitation assist device needs to read the wearer's biosignals, such as EMG, and provide assistance in the direction the person is trying to move, all while guaranteeing it won't hurt them, matching the “coexisting, cooperative, cognitive” requirements exactly.

Also called

Tri-Co, Coexisting-Cooperative-Cognitive Robot

Related

Human-Robot Collaboration · Collaborative Robot · Human-Robot Interaction · Physical Human-Robot Interaction · Swarm Intelligence · Multi-robot Collaboration

Sources

Tri-Co Robot: a Chinese robotic research initiative for enhanced robot interaction capabilities (Ding et al., National Science Review)

As of

2017-12