An Evaluation Schema for the Ethical Use of Autonomous Robotic Systems in Security Applications

We propose a multi-step evaluation schema designed to help procurement agencies and others to examine the ethical dimensions of autonomous systems to be applied in the security sector, including autonomous weapons systems

Virtual Borders: Accurate Definition of a Mobile Robot's Workspace Using Augmented Reality

We address the problem of interactively controlling the workspace of a mobile robot to ensure a human-aware navigation. This is especially of relevance for non-expert users living in human-robot shared spaces, e.g. home environments, since they want to keep the control of their mobile robots, such as vacuum cleaning or companion robots. Therefore, we introduce virtual borders that are respected by a robot while performing its tasks. For this purpose, we employ a RGB-D Google Tango tablet as human-robot interface in combination with an augmented reality application to flexibly define virtual borders. We evaluated our system with 15 non-expert users concerning accuracy, teaching time and correctness and compared the results with other baseline methods based on visual markers and a laser pointer. The experimental results show that our method features an equally high accuracy while reducing the teaching time significantly compared to the baseline methods. This holds for different border lengths, shapes and variations in the teaching process. Finally, we demonstrated the correctness of the approach, i.e. the mobile robot changes its navigational behavior according to the user-defined virtual borders.Comment: Accepted on 2018 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), supplementary video: https://youtu.be/oQO8sQ0JBR

On the use of metaphors in designing educational interfaces

Metaphors are present in a wide range of everyday activities. They usually work by understanding or explaining complex subjects by terms from more familiar domains. Metaphors in everyday context are often used unconsciously, as their sources are basic entities and perceptual experiences. They can, however, be used deliberately in educational discourse to explain difficult concepts and introduce new ideas in an intelligible manner. This approach falls under constructivism, which claims that an effective learning strategy is to scaffold on the previous knowledge and conceptual representations. However, there are some limitations of introducing a new concept indirectly via a metaphor. We consider these issues here in the domains of physics education, human-computer interfaces and human-robot interactions. We argue that metaphors are most effective for novices, when one needs to grasp a general idea about a concept and understand its functions without a detailed analysis. In this respect, metaphor can be a powerful tool for bridging gaps in understanding between familiar terms and abstract ideas that are yet to be learned

HIRO-NET.Heterogeneous intelligent robotic network for internet sharing in disaster scenarios

This article describes HIRO-NET, an Heterogeneous Intelligent Robotic Network. HIRO-NET is an emergency infrastructure-less network that aims to address the problem of providing connectivity in the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster, where no cellular or wide area network is operational and no Internet access is available. HIRO-NET establishes a two-tier wireless mesh network where the Lower Tier connects nearby survivors in a self-organized mesh via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and the Upper Tier creates long-range VHF links between autonomous robots exploring the disaster stricken area. HIRO-NET’s main goal is to enable users in the disaster area to exchange text messages to share critical information and request help from first responders. The mesh network discovery problem is analyzed and a network protocol specifically designed to facilitate the exploration process is presented. We show how HIRO-NET robots successfully discover, bridge and interconnect local mesh networks. Results show that the Lower Tier always reaches network convergence and the Upper Tier can virtually extend HIRO-NET functionalities to the range of a small metropolitan area. In the event of an Internet connection still being available to some user, HIRO-NET is able to opportunistically share and provide access to low data-rate services (e.g., Twitter, Gmail) to the whole network. Results suggest that a temporary emergency network to cover a metropolitan area can be created in tens of minutes. Inde