Creating a voice for MiRo, the world's first commercial biomimetic robot

Copyright © 2017 ISCA. This paper introduces MiRo-The world's first commercial biomimetic robot-And describes how its vocal system was designed using a real-Time parametric general-purpose mammalian vocal synthesiser tailored to the specific physical characteristics of the robot. MiRo's capabilities will be demonstrated live during the hands-on interactive 'Show & Tell' session at INTERSPEECH-2017

Towards a Legal end Ethical Framework for Personal Care Robots. Analysis of Person Carrier, Physical Assistant and Mobile Servant Robots.

Technology is rapidly developing, and regulators and robot creators inevitably have to come to terms with new and unexpected scenarios. A thorough analysis of this new and continuosuly evolving reality could be useful to better understand the current situation and pave the way to the future creation of a legal and ethical framework. This is clearly a wide and complex goal, considering the variety of new technologies available today and those under development. Therefore, this thesis focuses on the evaluation of the impacts of personal care robots. In particular, it analyzes how roboticists adjust their creations to the existing regulatory framework for legal compliance purposes. By carrying out an impact assessment analysis, existing regulatory gaps and lack of regulatory clarity can be highlighted. These gaps should of course be considered further on by lawmakers for a future legal framework for personal care robot. This assessment should be made first against regulations. If the creators of the robot do not encounter any limitations, they can then proceed with its development. On the contrary, if there are some limitations, robot creators will either (1) adjust the robot to comply with the existing regulatory framework; (2) start a negotiation with the regulators to change the law; or (3) carry out the original plan and risk to be non-compliant. The regulator can discuss existing (or lacking) regulations with robot developers and give a legal response accordingly. In an ideal world, robots are clear of impacts and therefore threats can be responded in terms of prevention and opportunities in form of facilitation. In reality, the impacts of robots are often uncertain and less clear, especially when they are inserted in care applications. Therefore, regulators will have to address uncertain risks, ambiguous impacts and yet unkown effects

ATHENA Research Book, Volume 2

ATHENA European University is an association of nine higher education institutions with the mission of promoting excellence in research and innovation by enabling international cooperation. The acronym ATHENA stands for Association of Advanced Technologies in Higher Education. Partner institutions are from France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal and Slovenia: University of Orléans, University of Siegen, Hellenic Mediterranean University, Niccolò Cusano University, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Polytechnic Institute of Porto and University of Maribor. In 2022, two institutions joined the alliance: the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University from Poland and the University of Vigo from Spain. Also in 2022, an institution from Austria joined the alliance as an associate member: Carinthia University of Applied Sciences. This research book presents a selection of the research activities of ATHENA University's partners. It contains an overview of the research activities of individual members, a selection of the most important bibliographic works of members, peer-reviewed student theses, a descriptive list of ATHENA lectures and reports from individual working sections of the ATHENA project. The ATHENA Research Book provides a platform that encourages collaborative and interdisciplinary research projects by advanced and early career researchers