A zyxw Robot in a Cage zy - zyx Exploring Interactions between Animals and Robots. Marc Bohlen School of Art, The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh Pa bohlen@cs.cmu.edu Abstract Typically, the animal world has been used conceptually by roboticists as a source of inspiration for finding new approaches to efficient locomotion, perception and intelligent control [Brooks9 I], [Hallam, Walker931, [Aloimonos97]. This paper explores the question of designing a robot to share a space with a simple animal. A series of experiments between a mobile robot and three chickens in a cage are described. Techniques are described to mechanically reduce chickens' anxiety towards moving machinery. A model of interaction between animals and machines is proposed. These insights are then placed into a wider context of robot design. Introduction While the interaction between human beings and machinery, in particular computers (HCI) has received much attention in the past, animal- machine interaction has not. The reasons are obvious. Why would one care? Furthermore, it is difficult to assess how animals perceive things in general, let alone machinery. While the question may be difficult to answer, there could be promising insights on both a theoretical and a practical level. On a theoretical level, one might want to know how simple animals perceive a non- animated object that can move autonomously. Simple animals understand motion as synonymous with life, and a moving but inanimate object constitutes a novel entity in their world. On a practical level, one might like to find design specifications that facilitate the introduction of mobile machinery into industrialized farms, for example. Design Choices Obviously, the ideas depicted above can not be answered in the abstract. In order to control the comparatively simple [Rogers95], cheap and fairly easily maintained in a laboratory setting.' A mobile robot was chosen as a representative of machinery in general. The implementation of the design choices proceeded as follows: Three Rhode Island Red chickens and a rugged, can-style (10 in. diameter), custom made mobile robot shared a 6x6ft calcium- sand cage during 60 days. Communication was maintained with the robot through radio modems. Feedback was maintained by a camera mounted directly above the cage. Figure 1 shows a diagram of the experimental setup. I camera I computer Overview zyxwvu of Installation Fig. zyxwvu 1 Figure 2 shows a flow diagram of the system components. The first step is the acquisition of an image by the camera. This information is fed into the image analysis module that discerns whether a found blob is a chicken or the robot. The arbitration module decides what the chickens are doing. The architecture module maps a robot action to the observed chicken action. The communication ' The project has been approved by Carnegie Mellon's Research Evaluation Committee with the identification number A3352-01. complexities of the problem, the following decisions were made. Chickens were chosen as experimental animals as they are neurologically US. Government work not protected by U.S. copyright. 214