Great love for Robotics at THI

In the summer of 2022, robot dog Spike walked across the campus of the Ingolstadt University of Applied Sciences (THI) for the first time and earned many astonished looks. Almost like a real four-legged friend, Spike can listen to the word, react to commands and express emotions. The body of the 15-kilogram robot can move in twelve degrees of freedom and the head in three.

THI students had given the robot provided by the Artificial Intelligence Network Ingolstadt gGmbH (AININ) an update. "Emotionalising the whole thing was an issue, because Spike can express feelings by changing its eye image"; says Christian Anghelide from AININ. Prof. Dr Gerhard Elsbacher, Prof. Dr Stefan Kugele, Mariano Frohnmaier and Prof. Dr Munir Georges put together a group of 35 students from the faculties of computer science, industrial engineering and mechanical engineering for this. In addition to building mechanical parts for the control system and programming the software, know-how from the field of artificial intelligence also flowed into the student project "Empathy with aN AutonoMOUs Robot" (ENAMOUR).

Intelligent human-robot collaboration

At THI, numerous researchers are working with robots. The machines should increasingly adapt to humans and interact with them. Areas of application include the care of elderly and disabled people or the care of children. Artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly important role not only in these social robots, as the robots are supposed to react flexibly to human needs.

"Linking robots with emotions is important and will become increasingly important in the future," says Prof. Dr. Christian Pfitzner, who teaches and researches in the field of Intelligent Human-Robot Collaboration at THI. The range of designs for robots is very wide. Pfitzner has seen it all at conferences: He has seen everything from functional robots without faces to robots with emotions on the display, like Spike, to robots with glowing red LED eyes like in a scary movie.

Background on Love Your Robot Day

Robot Honour Day was originally conceived in 2001 as a one-off, joke event to promote US musician Victor Lam's album "Robot Love". However, the idea took on a life of its own. Nowadays, it's more about reflecting on the role of robots in society.