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

A Framework for Interactive Teaching of Virtual Borders to Mobile Robots

The increasing number of robots in home environments leads to an emerging coexistence between humans and robots. Robots undertake common tasks and support the residents in their everyday life. People appreciate the presence of robots in their environment as long as they keep the control over them. One important aspect is the control of a robot's workspace. Therefore, we introduce virtual borders to precisely and flexibly define the workspace of mobile robots. First, we propose a novel framework that allows a person to interactively restrict a mobile robot's workspace. To show the validity of this framework, a concrete implementation based on visual markers is implemented. Afterwards, the mobile robot is capable of performing its tasks while respecting the new virtual borders. The approach is accurate, flexible and less time consuming than explicit robot programming. Hence, even non-experts are able to teach virtual borders to their robots which is especially interesting in domains like vacuuming or service robots in home environments.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Classifying types of gesture and inferring intent

In order to infer intent from gesture, a rudimentary classification of types of gestures into five main classes is introduced. The classification is intended as a basis for incorporating the understanding of gesture into human-robot interaction (HRI). Some requirements for the operational classification of gesture by a robot interacting with humans are also suggested

Designing People to Serve

I argue that, contrary to intuition, it would be both possible and permissible to design people - whether artificial or organic - who by their nature desire to do tasks we find unpleasant

Averting Robot Eyes

Home robots will cause privacy harms. At the same time, they can provide beneficial services—as long as consumers trust them. This Essay evaluates potential technological solutions that could help home robots keep their promises, avert their eyes, and otherwise mitigate privacy harms. Our goals are to inform regulators of robot-related privacy harms and the available technological tools for mitigating them, and to spur technologists to employ existing tools and develop new ones by articulating principles for avoiding privacy harms. We posit that home robots will raise privacy problems of three basic types: (1) data privacy problems; (2) boundary management problems; and (3) social/relational problems. Technological design can ward off, if not fully prevent, a number of these harms. We propose five principles for home robots and privacy design: data minimization, purpose specifications, use limitations, honest anthropomorphism, and dynamic feedback and participation. We review current research into privacy-sensitive robotics, evaluating what technological solutions are feasible and where the harder problems lie. We close by contemplating legal frameworks that might encourage the implementation of such design, while also recognizing the potential costs of regulation at these early stages of the technology

Design and Fabrication of Automatic Floor Cleaner

Automatic floor cleaner is a system that enables cleaning of the floor by the help of highly stabilized and rapidly functionalized electronic and mechanical control system. Current project work targets to use automatic floor cleaner for large floor in house-hold purposes and office floors. The cleaning purpose is specifically carried out by continuous relative motion between a scrubber and the floor surface. During the cleaning and moving operation of vehicle a propulsion mechanism such as driven wheels and guide wheels for the dry tracking on the floor surface to be cleaned, suction of water is carried out by vacuum pump, scrubbing action is done by the scrubber directing water towards rear end. Preferably, a sweeper mechanism is mounted on the body forwarded by propulsion mechanism and operated with such control system for advance sweeping of a debris-laden floor surface. A PID controller is used to govern the motion of system which takes the input from sensor circuit and feeds it back to microcontroller which gives rise to the simulation of wheel in a synchronized manner. The new automatic floor cleaner will save huge cost of labor in future. The basic advantage of this product is that it will be cost effective and no human control is needed. Once put in on mode it will clean the whole room without any omission of surfac