A robotic rat learned how to befriend real rats using AI. The wheeled rat was designed to provide companionship for lab rats, which can live pretty secluded and lonely lives. The robots have movements and appearances similar to real animals and even emit the same odor.
The rat was designed by researcher Qing Shi and his colleagues at the Beijing Institute of Technology in China. It moves using a bionic spine that can bend into various body postures. It’s also equipped with two front arms and two wheels that act as its rear legs.
The researchers put the robotic rat through a series of three half-hour trials to see just how it would interact with a real rodent. They watched as the robot used an onboard camera to visually detect and track the real rat before it approached to see if it was open to an aggressive or friendly social interaction.
These experiments showcased how the rats reacted to the robot. They often emit more vocal alarm sounds when being pinned by it. However, they also expressed more vocal positive sounds when the robot engaged in playful nose-touching or even pouncing.
Previous attempts to engage robotic rats with real rodents has proven difficult, too, because of how intelligent rats are at a basic level. However, the researchers believe the addition of AI training is what helps their robot stand out above the others that have been created in the past.
Ultimately, researchers hope that by using robots like this, they can learn more about the well-being of rats and help improve their living conditions by providing them with social companionship. Robots like this can help pursue that without introducing the unpredictable aggression of a live rat to the mix.
Because rats are widely used in scientific environments, it’s important to ensure that laboratory rats are treated humanely and given good lives despite the tests they might be put through. Adding robotic rats to the mix of various enrichment attempts—like teaching rats to drive—could help put the rats in a much better environment overall.
