The year 2015 saw the launch of a number of robots, including the ones that can collect trash from homes or deliver groceries. With the advancement in the field of artificial intelligence, robotic engineering industry is further expected to boom in the coming years.

Take a look at five most interesting robots idealised and launched in the year 2015.

"Anti-terror" robot

With an ability to launch an attack against the enemies, the anti-terror robots recently made their debut at the 2015 World Robot Conference, which took place in Beijing.

The anti-terror robots come in a set of three. Each robot is specialised in a particular task, including launching an armed attack, reconnaissance and small explosive ordnance disposal (EOD).

China's new line of defence is priced at 1.5 million yuan or US$230,000 (AU$319,657.56).

"Self-aware" robot

In July 2015, a team of researchers based in New York tested self-awareness of three programmable NAO robots, and the results were astonishing.

One of the three humanoid robots was able to show a sense of self-awareness by responding to one of the questions by the researchers. The researchers say that this type of programming called psychometric AI could actually help make robots more useful to humans.

"Disobeying robot"

A research team at the Tufts University is programming robots to decide by themselves whether they wish to follow human instructions or not. That is, robots will soon be able to say “no” to their own masters.

The decision made by the robot will be based on two criteria – the result of the action and the authority of the person. The technology is based on the ability of the robots to override its programming if it foresees an action creating danger for itself or others or if the other person is not authorised to dictate an action.

"Emotional" robot

Japan-based SoftBank's “Pepper” robot can listen to humans, talk to them and sing and dance with them. Pepper is one of the world's first personal robots designed to understand and feel human emotions.

Costing around 198,000 Japanese yen or US$2,000 (AU$2779.63), Pepper can live in its owner's house independently. The Telegraph reports that Pepper is one of the first house-bots that can identify and respond to human emotions, including frowning and laughing.

The first batch of Pepper hit the Japanese market in June 2015. It is expected to reach the American market by 2016.

"Sota" robot

The social talker, or Sota, is designed to talk to other robots. The 11-inch-tall robot is not interested in learning the language humans speak. Instead, it pushes humans to understand what it speaks.

According to the Times of Malta, Hiroshi Ishiguro of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory believes that robots can be programmed to carry different kinds of conversation rather than to just agree with each other.

Ishiguro further said that the main objective behind designing Sota was to convey the message that humans should stop expecting robots to live up to their expectations or do things that they want them to do.

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