Towards Emergence of Tool Use in Robots: Automatic Tool Recognition and Use Without Prior Tool Learning

Humans are adept at tool use. We can intuitively and immediately improvise and use unknown objects in our environment as tools, to assist us in performing tasks. In this study, we provide similar cognition and capabilities to robots. Neuroscientific studies on tool use have suggested that human dexterity with tools is enabled by the embodiment of the tools, which in effect, allows humans to immediately transfer prior skills acquired without tools, onto tasks requiring tool use. Here, utilizing the theoretical results from our investigations on embodiment and tool use in humans over the last years, we propose a concept and algorithm to enable similar skill transfer by robots. Our algorithm enables a robot that has had no prior learning with tools, to automatically recognize an object (seen for the first time) in its environment as a potential tool for an otherwise unattainable task, and use the tool to perform the task thereafter.

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