Researchers hack domestic robots to handle more than just vacuuming

If you’re annoyed that your robotic vacuum cleaner just sits around doing nothing, wasting space when it’s not vacuuming, then researchers have a solution – program domestic robots to do more than just cleaning, such as watering your plants, playing with the cat, and more.

Indeed, computer scientists at the University of Bath in the UK have proposed more than 100 ways in which domestic robots can do a lot more than originally envisioned, arguing it’s possible to reprogram them to stay physically active during their downtime, per a report by Tech Xplore on April 28.

What domestic robots can do

Specifically, these additional helpful functions could include playing with the house pets, watering plants, carrying groceries from car to kitchen, bringing food, and closing windows when it rains, according to the researchers’ paper presented at the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

Furthermore, they went beyond the theoretical by actually demonstrating the technical feasibility of their suggestions by fine-tuning a Roomba to perform four specific actions – charging a mobile phone and bringing it back to the user; displaying workout videos on a wall as scheduled; monitoring the home remotely; and signaling a user’s work status to deter disturbances.

In the words of Yoshiaki Shiokawa, the paper’s first author and a PhD student in the Department of Computer Science at Bath:

“Mobile domestic robots, like robot vacuum cleaners and lawnmowers, are perceived as limited, single-task devices but there is a strong argument that they are under-used for practical tasks. For most of the day, they sit idle. (…) Our study proved that after making minimal adjustments, a Roomba can serve multiple roles around the home.”

Their research paves the way for other possible uses, suggesting that, with the right extensions and attachments, they could undertake additional tasks, like delivering light therapy for individuals with seasonal affective disorder (SAD), reminding users to take medication, or scheduling doctors’ appointments.

Elsewhere, scientists are working on actual household robots such as Helix AI. Others have developed a robotic artificial intelligence (AI) system that learns just by watching how-to videos of humans doing tasks, while there are also those who have created a tiny legless robot that can jump 10 feet high by imitating a parasitic worm.