Haile (robot)

Haile (pronounced Hi-lee) is a robot percussionist developed by the Georgia Institute of Technology that listens to music in real time and creates an accompanying beat. The robot was designed in 2006 by Georgia Tech's professor of musical technology, Gil Weinberg. He and one of his graduate students, Scott Driscoll, created the robot to be able to "listen like a human, [and] improvise like a robot" (Weinberg). Haile "listens" through a microphone mounted on the drum and analyzes the sound, separating it into beats, rhythms, pitches and several other qualities. Detecting changes in these qualities helps Haile to assume either a leading or following style of play, roles that define the robot's collaborative abilities. Haile was also the first robot to create an acoustic percussion experience rather than play music through speakers. Its anthropomorphic design, which gives it movable arms that can move in any direction, allow it to create this acoustic music.

Driscoll's initial goal for making Haile was to combine the use of auditory input and robotics to create a musical experience that would lead to further human–robot interaction. The final goal was a robot that could translate live music into an acoustic performance that could implement and transcend human capabilities. Haile wasn't designed to replace human musicians, but rather to accompany them with expressive playing.

These goals led to Weinberg wanting to create an acoustic musical experience. His earlier experiments failed to incorporate the visual or auditory aspects associated with acoustic music. Haile's functional drumming arms add musical cues (visually stimulating bouncing drum sticks and live, acoustic sounds) that other robot performances lack. Additionally, other attempts at percussion playing robots, Weinberg saw, were limited in the variety of beats that they could produce. Haile is not only preloaded with individual beats, but is also programmed to identify pitch, rhythm, and patterns, allowing it to improvise and play different beats every time, rather than simply mimic.

Haile's anthropomorphic or human-like design mimics human movements which supports interactive play with other musicians. Its two robotic arms are responsible for creating different sounds; the right arm plays faster notes, while the left arm has larger motions for louder and slower beats. While other robotic drummers at the time were limited to playing only a few locations on the drum, Haile is versatile in its ability to play along a straight line from the rim to the center of the drum.

Haile's wooden designed was modeled to match the natural feel of a Native American pow wow(Native American gathering), so it was made out of wood rather than metal. The wooden parts were made at the Advanced Wood Product Laboratory at Georgia Tech's College of Architecture using a CNC wood router. It was originally designed to play a pow wow drum, a multiplayer drum that supports Haile's collaborative purpose. However, it also was made with metal joints that give it adjustable height so it can play other drums. These joints are the keys to the robot's arm movement up and down, left and right, and front and back. If needed, they detach, allowing for full disassembly.

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