A complementing approach for identifying ethical issues in care robotics – grounding ethics in practical use

We use a long-term study of a robotic eating-aid for disabled users to illustrate how empirical use give rise to a set of ethical issues that might be overlooked in ethic discussions based on theoretical extrapolation of the current state-of-the-art in robotics. This approach provides an important complement to the existing robot ethics by revealing new issues as well as providing actionable guidance for current and future robot design. We discuss our material in relation to the literature on robot ethics, specifically the risk of robots performing care taking tasks and thus causing increased isolation for care recipients. Our data identifies a different set of ethical issues such as independence, privacy, and identity where robotics, if carefully designed and developed, can make positive contributions

This Far, No Further: Introducing Virtual Borders to Mobile Robots Using a Laser Pointer

We address the problem of controlling the workspace of a 3-DoF mobile robot. In a human-robot shared space, robots should navigate in a human-acceptable way according to the users' demands. For this purpose, we employ virtual borders, that are non-physical borders, to allow a user the restriction of the robot's workspace. To this end, we propose an interaction method based on a laser pointer to intuitively define virtual borders. This interaction method uses a previously developed framework based on robot guidance to change the robot's navigational behavior. Furthermore, we extend this framework to increase the flexibility by considering different types of virtual borders, i.e. polygons and curves separating an area. We evaluated our method with 15 non-expert users concerning correctness, accuracy and teaching time. The experimental results revealed a high accuracy and linear teaching time with respect to the border length while correctly incorporating the borders into the robot's navigational map. Finally, our user study showed that non-expert users can employ our interaction method.Comment: Accepted at 2019 Third IEEE International Conference on Robotic Computing (IRC), supplementary video: https://youtu.be/lKsGp8xtyI

Internet of robotic things : converging sensing/actuating, hypoconnectivity, artificial intelligence and IoT Platforms

The Internet of Things (IoT) concept is evolving rapidly and influencing newdevelopments in various application domains, such as the Internet of MobileThings (IoMT), Autonomous Internet of Things (A-IoT), Autonomous Systemof Things (ASoT), Internet of Autonomous Things (IoAT), Internetof Things Clouds (IoT-C) and the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) etc.that are progressing/advancing by using IoT technology. The IoT influencerepresents new development and deployment challenges in different areassuch as seamless platform integration, context based cognitive network integration,new mobile sensor/actuator network paradigms, things identification(addressing, naming in IoT) and dynamic things discoverability and manyothers. The IoRT represents new convergence challenges and their need to be addressed, in one side the programmability and the communication ofmultiple heterogeneous mobile/autonomous/robotic things for cooperating,their coordination, configuration, exchange of information, security, safetyand protection. Developments in IoT heterogeneous parallel processing/communication and dynamic systems based on parallelism and concurrencyrequire new ideas for integrating the intelligent “devices”, collaborativerobots (COBOTS), into IoT applications. Dynamic maintainability, selfhealing,self-repair of resources, changing resource state, (re-) configurationand context based IoT systems for service implementation and integrationwith IoT network service composition are of paramount importance whennew “cognitive devices” are becoming active participants in IoT applications.This chapter aims to be an overview of the IoRT concept, technologies,architectures and applications and to provide a comprehensive coverage offuture challenges, developments and applications

Robotic ubiquitous cognitive ecology for smart homes

Robotic ecologies are networks of heterogeneous robotic devices pervasively embedded in everyday environments, where they cooperate to perform complex tasks. While their potential makes them increasingly popular, one fundamental problem is how to make them both autonomous and adaptive, so as to reduce the amount of preparation, pre-programming and human supervision that they require in real world applications. The project RUBICON develops learning solutions which yield cheaper, adaptive and efficient coordination of robotic ecologies. The approach we pursue builds upon a unique combination of methods from cognitive robotics, machine learning, planning and agent- based control, and wireless sensor networks. This paper illustrates the innovations advanced by RUBICON in each of these fronts before describing how the resulting techniques have been integrated and applied to a smart home scenario. The resulting system is able to provide useful services and pro-actively assist the users in their activities. RUBICON learns through an incremental and progressive approach driven by the feed- back received from its own activities and from the user, while also self-organizing the manner in which it uses available sensors, actuators and other functional components in the process. This paper summarises some of the lessons learned by adopting such an approach and outlines promising directions for future work

Bovine and human becomings in histories of dairy technologies: robotic milking systems and remaking animal and human subjectivity

This paper positions the recent emergence of robotic or automatic milking systems (AMS) in relation to discourses surrounding the longer history of milking technologies in the UK and elsewhere. The mechanisation of milking has been associated with sets of hopes and anxieties which permeated the transition from hand to increasingly automated forms of milking. This transition has affected the relationships between humans and cows on dairy farms, producing different modes of cow and human agency and subjectivity. In this paper, drawing on empirical evidence from a research project exploring AMS use in contemporary farms, we examine how ongoing debates about the benefits (or otherwise) of AMS relate to longer-term discursive currents surrounding the historical emergence of milking technologies and their implications for efficient farming and the human and bovine experience of milk production. We illustrate how technological change is in part based on understandings of people and cows, at the same time as bovine and human agency and subjectivity are entrained and reconfigured in relation to emerging milking technologies, so that what it is to be a cow or human becomes different as technologies change. We illustrate how this results from – and in – competing ways of understanding cows: as active agents, as contributing to technological design, as ‘free’, as ‘responsible’ and/or as requiring surveillance and discipline, and as efficient co-producers, with milking technologies, of milk

Spartan Daily December 9, 2010

Volume 135, Issue 53https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/1216/thumbnail.jp

Aspects of automation of selective cleaning

Cleaning (pre-commercial thinning) is a silvicultural operation, primarily used to improve growing conditions of remaining trees in young stands (ca. 3 - 5 m of height). Cleaning costs are considered high in Sweden and the work is laborious. Selective cleaning with autonomous artificial agents (robots) may rationalise the work, but requires new knowledge. This thesis aims to analyse key issues regarding automation of cleaning; suggesting general solutions and focusing on automatic selection of main-stems. The essential requests put on cleaning robots are to render acceptable results and to be cost competitive. They must be safe and be able to operate independently and unattended for several hours in a dynamic and non-deterministic environment. Machine vision, radar, and laser scanners are promising techniques for obstacle avoidance, tree identification, and tool control. Horizontal laser scannings were made, demonstrating the possibility to find stems and make estimations regarding their height and diameter. Knowledge regarding stem selections was retrieved through qualitative interviews with persons performing cleaning. They consider similar attributes of trees, and these findings and current cleaning manuals were used in combination with a field inventory in the development of a decision support system (DSS). The DSS selects stems by the attributes species, position, diameter, and damage. It was used to run computer-based simulations in a variety of young forests. A general follow-up showed that the DSS produced acceptable results. The DSS was further evaluated by comparing its selections with those made by experienced cleaners, and by a test in which laymen performed cleanings following the system. The DSS seems to be useful and flexible, since it can be adjusted in accordance with the cleaners’ results. The laymen’s results implied that the DSS is robust and that it could be used as a training tool. Using the DSS in automatic, or semi-automatic, cleaning operations should be possible if and when selected attributes can be automatically perceived. A suitable base-machine and thorough research, regarding e.g. safety, obstacle avoidance, and target identification, is needed to develop competitive robots. However, using the DSS as a training-tool for inexperienced cleaners could be an interesting option as of today

Asian Roboticism: Connecting Mechanized Labor to the Automation of Work

Abstract This article reconsiders the present-day automation of work and its transformation of who we are as humans. What has been missing from this important conversation are the social meanings surrounding Asian roboticism or how Asians have already been rendered as “robotic” subjects and labor. Through this racial gendered trope, I assess whether industrial automation will lessen, complicate, or exacerbate this modern archetype. By looking at corporate organizational practices and public media discourse, I believe that Asian roboticism will not simply vanish, but potentially continue to affect the ways such subjects are rendered as exploitable alienated robots without human rights or status