ROBOTS designed to enhance family life developed at the University of Plymouth have been used in a BBC documentary.

Six Robots and Us aired on BBC2 on Wednesday and Thursday, December 27 and 28, and explored how useful robots might be in improving the lives of ordinary families.

The first night’s episode featured the Rocket family, who are from Torpoint. They were joined at home by a robot developed by academics and technicians from Plymouth University.

Over the space of a month, the revolutionary Pepper robot - rechristened FitBot - offered advice on food, fitness and a variety of other factors, with the aim of getting the family members in shape by the end of the four weeks.

The robot was programmed by MEng Robotics graduate Jake Shaw-Sutton to stay in the home and interact with the family.

Jake, who is working as a robotics technician at the University, said: ‘We needed to create a robot that not only had personality but could also listen to what the family wanted and offer relevant advice. It meant developing new software which used keywords from search engines and then found solutions to diet and exercise queries which it felt would be most appropriate. It has been a really interesting experiment to be involved with.’

The documentary also featured a ‘TutorBot’ programmed to help a little boy with dwarfism and a learning delay, and a robot designed to help children on the autistic spectrum.

Watching the robots’ every move were psychologist Dr Caroline Jay and robotics specialist Professor Jonathan Rossiter. They were keen to observe how the robots fared with their tasks, how the humans bonded with them - and whether the families would want to keep their new addition or switch them off at the end of the experiment.

Plymouth University’s Centre for Robotics and Neural Systems has spent several years developing social robots, which aim to use cutting edge technology in a range of everyday settings.

This has included helping diabetic children accept the nature of their condition, and exploring the effectiveness of robots in teaching people a new language.

It has also involved the creation of a Robot Home, an interdisciplinary hub where the University’s international team can study human interaction with their family of robots.

Six Robots and Us is now available to watch on the BBC iPlayer.