A robot that reacts to Hindustani classical music

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Some of the researchers and students at the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, in Delhi are working on developing a kit that would allow one to assemble their robot that would respond to the music and voice commands.

The researchers have already created and developed a prototype and named it as Jamoora, after the performers who play the sidekick roles in the traditional folk theatre. They are also planning to present a paper on the do it yourself robot at the next user interface software and technology conference which is also an annual event on the technical innovations in the human and computer interfaces.

“This (developing the kit) would take four-six months,” Parnami said. “The robot would follow the customized voice and music commands.” Jamoora — the first of its kind that the developers say the response to Hindustani classical music — can be used as a teaching tool by schools and colleges to make learning more funfilled. Those assembling the robot from the kit will have the option to customize it to respond to any music.

Jamoora follows and behaves on the commands from the stories that are being recited. It even picks up the clue for the actions from some of the certain keyword while its mood is also determined by the music which is played. For much more instance, it the story is all about a thirsty camel roaming in the desert, then a keyword like the roaming would also determine the action of the robot.

The communication with the Jamoora will take place with the help of a laptop, where the processing of the keywords takes places. The commands are given with the help of keywords woven into a script. They way the Jamoora executes these actions is controlled by the Hindustani Classic Music played with the command like the “We are looking at launching this tool kit which would be like Lego box,” said Parnami.