The technological core
The technological core of playware research is the concept of robot technology with distributed systems that contain the processing, sensor systems, effector systems, communication and energy supply, and which can be physically scaled according to product type.
The research is directed towards an understanding of the ways in which intelligent systems can motivate, initiate and maintain interplay between users and the technological system, and the intention is to develop a body of knowledge capable of being translated into practice in products.
Robotic, adaptivity & artificial intelligence
The synthesis of artificial intelligence and physical systems in robotics presents unique opportunities for pure research. Robotics creates the basis for experimental research, in which the interplay between user and system can be controlled, altered and developed.
The technological basis can usefully be referred to as a flexible research laboratory; flexible in the sense that it allows investigations into the design of user experience and user motivation in concrete products. The research on modern artificial intelligence at the center focuses, for example, on the development of adaptivity, which permits technology to adapt to any given surroundings. Such automatic adaptation can take place in relation to different users at varying levels of competence. This permits a simple and understandable interaction with the technology in question, in that the technology automatically moulds itself to the preferences and skills of the individual user. The understanding and development of adaptivity is fundamental to modern artificial intelligence and robotics in that it allows research focus being placed on system behaviour in relation to an immediate environment.
The application of this basic understanding of modern artificial intelligence and adaptivity is given in the development of completely new forms of technological products, which can automatically be individualised and personalised. This can be done by incorporating adaptivity into a given product, which then automatically attempts to characterise the user behaviour via their physical interaction.
Artificial intelligence & physical substance
Another important fundamental recognition in modern artificial intelligence is the significance of physical substance in the make-up of intelligence. As opposed to classical artificial intelligence, which assumes that a cognitive level exists from which the body can be abstracted, modern artificial intelligence works from the assumption that the body plays an important and unavoidable role in intelligent behaviour.
For the research at the Playware centre, this means that understanding and development of intelligent physical prototypes plays a leading role and create a physical interplay between product, user and surroundings.