Robots could safeguard people from pain

At the Munich School of Robotics and Machine Intelligence, Sami Haddadin ( left ) and PhD candidate Johannes Kühn ( right ) develop intelligent machines that serve people. Here they explain how to use a sensitive robot. Image: Uli Benz / TUM Interview: Why robots need reflexes Robots could safeguard people from pain Reflexes protect our bodies - for example when we pull our hand back from a hot stove. These protective mechanisms could also be useful for robots. In this interview, Prof. Sami Haddadin and Johannes Kühn of the Munich School of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MSRM) of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) explain why giving test subjects a "slap on the hand" could lay the foundations for the robots of the future. In your paper, published in Scientific Reports, you describe an experimental setup where people were actually slapped on the hand - to study their reflexes. Kühn : Yes, you can put it that way. For our study, in cooperation with Imperial College London , the test subjects needed their reflexes to protect them against two different pain sources: first, a slap on the hand. And, while pulling their hand and arm out of harm's way, they also had to avoid an elbow obstacle. We studied the hand retraction and discovered that it is a highly coordinated motion. We also observed that the pain anticipated by a person shapes the reflex: If I know that the object behind me will cause similar pain to the slap on my fingers, I will withdraw my hand differently than when I know that the object will cause no pain. How can such a seemingly simple experiment contribute to the development of intelligent high-tech machines like robots?