Animal-in-the-Loop: Using Interactive Robotic Conspecifics to Study Social Behavior in Animal Groups

Abstract

Biomimetic robots that replace living social interaction partners can help elucidate the underlying interaction rules in animal groups. Our review focuses on the use of interactive robots that respond dynamically to animal behavior as part of a closed control loop. We discuss the most influential works to date and how they have contributed to our understanding of animal sociality. Technological advances permit the use of robots that can adapt to the situations they face and the conspecifics they encounter, or robots that learn to optimize their social performance from a set of experiences. We discuss how adaptation and learning may provide novel insights into group sociobiology and describe the technical challenges associatedwith these types of interactive robots. This interdisciplinary field provides a rich set of problems to be tackled by roboticists, machine learning engineers, and control theorists. By cultivating smarter robots, we can usher in an era of more nuanced exploration of animal behavior.