Researchers from the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies in collaboration with a scientist from the National Information Communications Technology Research Centre of Excellence in Australia are developing robots capable of teaching themselves how to cook using kitchen tools.

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These robots will be able to learn hand movements required for cooking by watching online cooking videos. They will have the ability to recognize "objects" and generate new behaviors based on their own "observations".

Researchers said the major breakthrough is the robots will "think" for themselves.

"We chose cooking videos because everyone has done it and understands it," said Yiannis Aloimonos, a professor of computer science and director of the Computer Vision Lab, one of the university's 16 labs and centers.

"But cooking is complex in terms of manipulation, the steps involved and the tools you use. If you want to cut a cucumber, for example, you need to grab the knife, move it into place, make the cut and observe the results to make sure you did them properly."

Researchers have combined three research areas to accomplish their goal. These areas include Artificial Intelligence (AI), computer vision and natural language.

"We are trying to create a technology so that robots eventually can interact with humans," said Cornelia Fermüller, an associate research scientist at the university.

"So they need to understand what humans are doing. For that, we need tools so that the robots can pick up a human's actions and track them in real time."

"We are interested in understanding all of these components. How is an action performed by humans? How is it perceived by humans? What are the cognitive processes behind it?" Fermüller added.

This research will be presented at the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Conference in Austin, Texas on Jan. 29.

TagsRobots, University of Maryland Institute of Advanced Computer Studies, UMIACS, National Information Communications Technology Research Centre of Excellence in Australia, cooking, Youtube Videos, AI, Computer Vision, Natural Language