A new chip developed by MIT researchers could help tiny, low-power UAVs avoid obstacles as they zip around tight corners inside an industrial HVAC system to check for gas leaks.

An increasingly common sight: robots walking down the street, surrounded by astounded onlookers. But these machines aren’t yet the do-it-all assistants you’d want working in a kitchen or factory, and a major bottleneck is data. Much like humans, robots learn best by experience. The challenge is that it’s labor-intensive and time-consuming to physically teach these machines so many actions across different settings. 

Imagine working at a warehouse or office sometime in the near future, and you’re asked to help a new trainee learn the basics of their job. The catch: It’s a robot. To teach them, you might want to play a game of “show and tell” — that is, physically showing how to do something a few different ways, while also explaining what you’re doing.

There’s a delicate art to teaching robots, even when you’re preparing them for predictable environments like factories, where they’ll repeat the same tasks a little differently depending on the obstacles they face. Whether a human is suddenly in their way or there’s new clutter, the machine must closely mimic its operator’s actions by staying on a trajectory (or motion path).

With this new technique, a robot could more accurately detect hidden objects or understand an indoor scene using reflected Wi-Fi signals.