What Makes AI ‘Intelligent’ and ‘Caring’?:Exploring Affect and Relationality Across Three Sites of Intelligence and Care

This research was funded in whole by the Wellcome Trust [Seed Award ‘AI and Health’ 213643/Z/18/Z]. For the purpose of Open Access, the authors have applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission. The authors would like to thank Dr Jane Hopton for inspiring discussions about AI and dimensions of intelligence, and three anonymous reviewers as well as the editor in chief Dr Timmemans at Social Science and Medicine for their very helpful and constructive feedback.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Inclusion of service robots in the daily lives of frail older users: a step-by-step definition procedure on users' requirements

The implications for the inclusion of robots in the daily lives of frail older adults, especially in relation to these population needs, have not been extensively studied. The “Multi-Role Shadow Robotic System for Independent Living” (SRS) project has developed a remotelycontrolled, semi-autonomous robotic system to be used in domestic environments. The objective of this paper is to document the iterative procedure used to identify, select and prioritize user requirements. Seventy-four requirements were identified by means of focus groups, individual interviews and scenario-based interviews. The list of user requirements, ordered according to impact, number and transnational criteria, revealed a high number of requirements related to basic and instrumental activities of daily living, cognitive and social support and monitorization, and also involving privacy, safety and adaptation issues. Analysing and understanding older users’ perceptions and needs when interacting with technological devices adds value to assistive technology and ensures that the systems address currently unmet needs

NeBula: Team CoSTAR's robotic autonomy solution that won phase II of DARPA Subterranean Challenge

This paper presents and discusses algorithms, hardware, and software architecture developed by the TEAM CoSTAR (Collaborative SubTerranean Autonomous Robots), competing in the DARPA Subterranean Challenge. Specifically, it presents the techniques utilized within the Tunnel (2019) and Urban (2020) competitions, where CoSTAR achieved second and first place, respectively. We also discuss CoSTAR¿s demonstrations in Martian-analog surface and subsurface (lava tubes) exploration. The paper introduces our autonomy solution, referred to as NeBula (Networked Belief-aware Perceptual Autonomy). NeBula is an uncertainty-aware framework that aims at enabling resilient and modular autonomy solutions by performing reasoning and decision making in the belief space (space of probability distributions over the robot and world states). We discuss various components of the NeBula framework, including (i) geometric and semantic environment mapping, (ii) a multi-modal positioning system, (iii) traversability analysis and local planning, (iv) global motion planning and exploration behavior, (v) risk-aware mission planning, (vi) networking and decentralized reasoning, and (vii) learning-enabled adaptation. We discuss the performance of NeBula on several robot types (e.g., wheeled, legged, flying), in various environments. We discuss the specific results and lessons learned from fielding this solution in the challenging courses of the DARPA Subterranean Challenge competition.The work is partially supported by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004), and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)

Robotic Wheelchairs: Scientific Experimentation or Social Intervention?

Abstract— Research in robotics is becoming an ever more applied science. Roboticists acknowledge the existence of a role for experiments in their research, but whether the results of such experiments provide useful information to the intended industry or profession remains somewhat ambiguous. In this paper, we particularly consider experiments relating to robotic wheelchairs. There are many prototype robotic wheelchairs, but what level of performance must they achieve before being accepted into mainstream society and how do we verify the reliability of such performance? How can researchers evaluate their systems effectively? We compare and contrast the metrics used by medical practitioners to gauge the mobility status of a patient with those that are popularly used in academia to evaluate robotic wheelchair performance. We conclude that to design and execute successful experiments with robotic wheelchairs, researchers must draw not only on the experience of the intended end users, but also on the expertise of the medical practitioners who assess and support the patients in the day–to–day use of their wheelchairs