Intelligent Robotics Institute, School of Mechatronical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, People's Republic of China. Waseda University, TWIns, 2-2, Wakamatsu-cho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-8480, Japan.
Bioinspir Biomim. 2013 Dec;8(4):046002. doi: 10.1088/1748-3182/8/4/046002. Epub 2013 Oct 4.
In this paper, we study the response of a rat to a rat-like robot capable of generating different types of behaviour (stressful, friendly, neutral). Experiments are conducted in an open-field where a rat-like robot called WR-4 is put together with live rats. The activity level of each rat subject is evaluated by scoring its locomotor activity and frequencies of performing rearing (rising up on its hind limbs) and body grooming (body cuddling and head curling) actions, whereas the degree of preference of that is indicated by the robot-rat distance and the frequency of contacting WR-4. The moving speed and behaviour of WR-4 are controlled in real-time based on the feedback from rat motion. The activity level and degree of preference of rats for each experimental condition are analysed and compared to understand the influence of robot behaviour. The results of this study show that the activity level and degree of preference of the rat decrease when exposed to a stressful robot, and increase when the robot exhibit friendly behaviour, suggesting that a rat-like robot can modulate rat behaviour in a controllable, predictable way.
在本文中，我们研究了大鼠对一种能够产生不同类型行为（压力、友好、中性）的类鼠机器人的反应。实验在一个开放场中进行，一只名为 WR-4 的类鼠机器人与活鼠放在一起。通过对大鼠的运动活动水平进行评分，评估每只大鼠的活动水平，评分标准为运动活动和进行后肢站立（后腿站立）和身体梳理（身体依偎和头部卷曲）动作的频率，而大鼠对机器人的偏好程度则通过机器人-大鼠的距离和接触 WR-4 的频率来表示。WR-4 的移动速度和行为根据大鼠运动的反馈实时控制。分析和比较了大鼠在每种实验条件下的活动水平和偏好程度，以了解机器人行为的影响。这项研究的结果表明，当大鼠接触到压力机器人时，其活动水平和偏好程度会降低，而当机器人表现出友好行为时，其活动水平和偏好程度会增加，这表明类鼠机器人可以以可控和可预测的方式调节大鼠的行为。
