Influencia

Abstract

In the fields of robotics and interactive devices the development of autonomous machines that can effectively sense and respond to humans is still complex and difficult to achieve. There are a great many ways to sense objects using sensors which can measure distance for example but despite this they all have their drawbacks and the majority cannot distinguish between an inanimate object and a human. In robotics it is necessary to employ many different sensors in tandem, such as infrared sensors, ultrasonic sensors and computer vision, in order for the robot to sense its surrounding environment. Influencia goes some way to exploring this realm by employing just two sensors to create a simple yet effective way to sense and respond to humans. The piece simultaneously explores the issues of how to sense humans and how machines can autonomously interact in a meaningful way with humans. How should machines interact with humans and what type of relationships would we build with independent autonomous machines? In science fiction we see a world populated with autonomous robots and machines which behave similarly to humans and perform human tasks. By employing a specialized heat sensor and ultrasonics we created a swarm of robots that can sense and follow a human whilst avoiding objects and with the use of code we programmed behaviors into the robots as to how they would respond when they encountered a human.