Cooperating robots developed in China-US project

An award-winning collaboration between Chinese and American researchers has pointed the way forward for the use of cloud computing to link different robots and make them more efficient.

Using Internet-based computing in which remote servers are networked to share information, the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in Hefei and Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University have been testing how robots with very different specifications can communicate with each other and work together.

Hefei-based "KeJia" can understand human language and has reasoning abilities, while Pittsburgh-based "CoBot" is good at analyzing large and complex sets of data. "Kejia" can work as a tour guide and house keeper, according to the researchers.

Earlier this month, the project won an award in the RoboCup China Open in Hefei, capital of east China's Anhui Province.

"Robots based on varied hardware and software have different capabilities and skills," the project's Chinese coordinator Chen Xiaoping told Xinhua.

By allowing different robots to connect with the cloud to share knowledge and skills, robots can be made more efficient and cheaper to operate, Chen said.

The two universities are working to apply their achievements to other robots elsewhere in the world, said Manuela Veloso, a professor at Carnegie Mellon.