Robot RAVE

A team from the department of Computer Science, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenapura have come up with a cute looking innovative robot. This falls under the category of Social Robotics and, this is the first of its kind in the country. They must have a lot to say.

Robotics has become one of the major spotlight grabbing technologies in the world. Though this technology is fairly new to the Sri Lankan techies, global institutes are coming up with groundbreaking innovations day by day, stirring up the interest of local institutes. Many institutes and personals have taken initiatives to step into this interesting research area.

The Department of Computer Science, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, marking a milestone, is introduced the first ever social robotic platform that is developed in Sri Lanka. The cute looking innovative social robot is specifically designed to capture the natural expressions of children, by interacting with them.

Even though Robotics is a new exposure for Sri Lanka, we have come across several robots in Sri Lankan arena, what makes your robot unique?

Yes, the fact that our robot deviates from current robotic technologies, practiced within the country is absolutely true. Generally robots are known for their accuracy, precision, effective, logical decisions making powers, high processing powers, strength etc, which makes them very valuable in fields like constructions, medical, agriculture, financial etc. The main difference is, what we have developed, is a Social Robot. Social Robotics is a fresh field for Sri Lanka as well as for the global arena. It’s a trending research area where the researchers are paying more attention currently. Since, using robots in areas of education, entertainment, social services, where social skills are a necessary factor, is very rare and challenging, and it is still a struggling aspect in robotics. And that is how Social robotics came into play. in social robotics we try to mimic a human, the daily routines, behaviors ,reactions in specific situations , the steps or the instruction in following a procedure by a person and the expressions are thoroughly observed, and used as inspiration for the development of a robot. The main objective of social robotics is to minimize the artificial and mechanical behavior of the robot and to give natural feel by embedding more human like behaviors. Achieving these targets of social robotics was our main concern and we have developed a very successful social robot.

This is the maiden robot by your team. Can we have a brief introduction on this?

Social robots target three main factors; design, animacy, and anthropomorphism. The design was built up from the scratch by our team, starting from the sketches, following the design patterns, learning the 3D designing technologies and even 3D printing. Providing animacy: make the robot look alive was another one of the major challenges. The target group of this robot is kids, our main objective was to gain the attention of the target group and make them respond to the robot. For this purpose animating technologies played a major role, which were carefully designed considering psychological factors. we observes the target group over period of time, and their behavioral patterns, their reactions were analyzed and used to give more human like behavior (anthropomorphism) to the robot and to increase the familiarity for the target group.

Using the balanced combination of these three concepts we were able to develop the robot successfully resulting in a robot that is capable of recognizing the target group, and adjusting its behaviors according the feedbacks and the reactions.

The concept of the robot is very unorthodox. How did the team come up with this?

Undergraduates who follow the Computer Science Special degree at our faculty need to conduct a research in their fourth year. This was the research theme selected by Didula Egodage and team; Thilina Madushanka, Udaka Manawadu and Lakshitha Madushan under the guidance of our mentor, Dr. Ravindra de Silva. By developing and advancing a small concept within about five months, we were able to come up with the first ever Social Robot in Sri Lanka and to be the initiators of the first Ever Social Robotics platform in the country.

Why did you give the name “Vidhu-Jaya” to this robot?

The hardest part other than making the robot was naming it. We were undecided between few suggestions that we received. Since this was the first robot developed by the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, we wanted to make a connection to the university as well. There were several names that are commonly used in the university, which has direct connection to the university. And “Vidhu-Jaya”, was one of them. We think the name suits him better, it will stand as a symbol, a milestone in Sri Lankan robotic journey.

It must have been really difficult to gather knowledge on a field which was completely new to Sri Lanka, how did the team overcome this challenge?

We are extremely privileged to have Dr. Ravindra de Silva as a lecturer of the department and most importantly as our mentor. He has intimate knowledge and firsthand experience on Social Robotics from working at Toyota Japan and Toyohashi University, Japan. If not for him, there wouldn’t be a “ViduJaya”.

Share your experience of working with the team.

We had a considerable basic knowledge when we started off the project. But our main obstacle was finding the required physical resources. Robotics is a fairly new industry in the Sri Lankan market, and it was not easy to find out the necessary resources. We spent days and days browsing through the streets of Pettah to find the required gadgets. But that didn’t stop us, our dreams kept us running towards our goals. Dr. Ravindra de Silva was the constant force that powered us.He lent us his personal resources,allowed us to use his personal office space to carry on the project, where we spent uncountable sleepless nights. Our hard work finally paid off, making “ViduJaya” a milestone in Robotics in Sri Lanka.

Also we need to make a special note on the physical design of “ViduJaya”, the cute face and the savvy design that you see is a creation of our team, from drawings to, 3D designing to 3D printing. 3D printing was new arena to the country back then. Although our faculty had a 3D printer, we had no idea how to operate it, we had to learn from the scratch, from opening the package to getting an object printed. There were numerous technical difficulties, to which we had to find solutions by ourselves. Now for our team 3D printing has become as easy as taking normal printout.

The journey we had, during the last five months, was not an easy one. There were so many obstacles so many hurdles, but together as a team we were able to overcome them and find solutions to every problem that we faced. All together it was an amazing journey, taught us a lot about teamwork and gave us technical experience which we cannot gain by simply reading a book.

What is the support received from the university?

Support extended by the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Sampath Amarathunge was a huge strength for us and also, the dean of the faculty of Applied Science, Prof. Sudantha Liyanage and Head of the department of Computer Science Dr. Ananda Edirisuriya were backing us from the start to the very end. Support extended by academic and non-academic staff of the department and all our beloved friends should be highly admired. And their help and support is what made “ViduJaya”, a huge success.

What kind of knowledge can a student build up by working in the social robotics?

Working in the social robotics arena is not an easy task, because it is defined as a multi-disciplinary area. Social robotics uses engineering, computer science, electronics, social sciences, psychology, mathematics, statistics and much more disciplinaries.

When working in developing research areas, it is very rare to get a visible final product where you can clearly witness the change you have done, but by working on social robotics students get the chance to apply their theoretical knowledge, combining it with their common social knowledge to produce a high quality end product.

What is the future of social robotics?

This is our first product, we were at level zero, when we started making “ViduJaya”. But now we have improved a lot and are more experienced. So we expect to come up with better and more successful products in the future.

And also this is not the end of “ViduJaya”, it keeps getting better and better everyday, with new suggestions, new ideas and new technologies. Our plan is to make “ViduJaya” the most sophisticated social robot available in the industry. We are ready to bring more innovative products to the global arena, and make a name for Sri Lanka in the global robotics industry. Keep an eye on us, because the best is yet to come.