By Ben Nadarajan

THREE robots from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star), which are designed specifically to interact with humans in social settings, will be on display at two major conferences later this month.

Two robots, known as Olivia and Lucas, will be greeting guests at the RoboCup, while a third, named Mika, will be serving drinks at the World Cities Summit.

RoboCup is an international research and education initiative aimed at fostering artificial intelligence and intelligent robotics research. It will be held at the Suntec Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Centre from June 19 to 25.

The World Cities Summit, also at Suntec, will run over four days starting June 28, where policymakers will discuss solutions to key issues facing cities.

Dr Li Haizhou, who heads the agency's Institute for Infocomm Research's human language technology department, said these social robots are very different from those which operate in manufacturing factories.

The focus for factory robots is on precision and productivity and their main feature is that they can perform tasks accurately and quickly.

But for social robots, the emphasis is on how to enhance the robots' interaction with humans.

The institute decided to go into social robotics three years ago because it felt this was an area that was going to take off in the future.

The institute had already come up with the inner workings necessary to make a robot work, such as speech recognition technology.

It has received several international awards in the past few years for some of these technologies.

The institute is also collaborating with two other institutes under A*Star - the Data Storage Institute and the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology - to advance research into robotic intelligence.

This collaboration, called the A*Star Inter Research Institute Robotics Programme, has developed essential social robotics technologies such as speech, language, vision and perception.

However, Dr Li, who has worked on speech and language technology in academia and the industry for 22 years, is quick to concede that current social robotics technology still falls short of people's expectations. But it is not all bad news.

Dr Li, who was one of only two to be picked as a Nokia Visiting Professor last year, noted that overseas studies have shown the use of social robots can really improve people's way of life.

For example, a robot built to teach a child was shown to be much more effective than having a child learn from a standard screen.

Studies have also been done on sales tactics, and these found that buyers were generally resistant to sales people approaching them to pitch a product.

However, when approached by a robot, buyers tended to be much more receptive.

And while the robots now being worked on can perform tasks such as those of a receptionist or a butler, Dr Li said they can also tweak their robots to suit the demands of their clients.

For example, some companies have started using robots to conduct patrols on their premises.

'Robots have a greater ability to notice things which are not usual or if something has changed,' said Dr Li.

'As such, they can be programmed to spot if something has changed in the surrounding of a place they are patrolling.'