Advancing Artificial Intelligence through Minimalist Humanoid Robotics

While the robots that most quickly come to mind to the general public are those with the most elaborate features and movements, those that are most useful in advancing the state of the art in artificial intelligence (AI) are very different. Minimalist robots are inexpensive and therefore more broadly available for research and educational purposes, but also force the researcher to rely on good, adaptable solutions to hard AI problems rather than relying on expensive specialized hardware that will only work under strict conditions. This chapter describes our work in minimalist humanoid robots, focussing mainly on Tao-Pie-Pie, a robot that competed successfully in numerous RoboCup and FIRA competitions. The chapter describes our motivations in designing minimalist robots and our rationale for working with humanoid robots, and describes the development of Tao-Pie-Pie, including contrasting this robot with other work and developing its walking gait and balancing reflexes. We then describe some issues in evaluating humanoid robots, and describe ongoing work.