ALIZ-e

There are currently various cognitive and social robots on the market with the aim to promote communication with for example children or the elderly. The problems with most of these robots, however is that the range of interaction is often very limited. Where the majority of the robots are only capable of interacting for a couple of minutes, the ALIZ-E project is looking to lengthen this range substantially.

The project will develop a theory, and subsequently the technology for cognitive robots to have believable conversations for longer and discontinuous periods of time. The ALIZ-E project is specifically focuses on small children. Future applications of the robot include the robots being used as educational companions for children.

One of the main goals of the project is to implement a memory system, which will allow the robot to store and recall experiences, to educate themselves and adapt their social behavior. The robot will firstly learn online to adapt its functionality. Real interactions with children require the understanding of human emotions and behaviour.

The ALIZ-E project will make use of the Aldebaran Nao robot as an implementation platform, for which the robot will further be developed for longer-term verbal and non-verbal communication.

ALIZ-E is a Collaborative Robotics project supported by the European Commission in the Seventh Framework Programme.