Progress and Prospects of the Human-Robot Collaboration

International audienceRecent technological advances in hardware designof the robotic platforms enabled the implementationof various control modalities for improved interactions withhumans and unstructured environments. An important applicationarea for the integration of robots with such advancedinteraction capabilities is human-robot collaboration. Thisaspect represents high socio-economic impacts and maintainsthe sense of purpose of the involved people, as the robotsdo not completely replace the humans from the workprocess. The research community’s recent surge of interestin this area has been devoted to the implementation of variousmethodologies to achieve intuitive and seamless humanrobot-environment interactions by incorporating the collaborativepartners’ superior capabilities, e.g. human’s cognitiveand robot’s physical power generation capacity. In fact,the main purpose of this paper is to review the state-of-thearton intermediate human-robot interfaces (bi-directional),robot control modalities, system stability, benchmarking andrelevant use cases, and to extend views on the required futuredevelopments in the realm of human-robot collaboration

Human robot collaboration in the MTA SZTAKI learning factory facility at Gyor

In recent years, interest has grown in environments where humans and robots collaborate, complementing the strengths and advantages of humans and machines. Design, construction and adjustment of such environments, as well as the training of operating personnel, requires thorough understanding of the nature of human robot collaboration which previous automation expertise does not necessarily provide. The learning factory currently being constructed by MTA SZTAKI in Gyor aims to provide hands-on experience in the design and operation of facilities supporting human robot collaboration, mainly in assembly tasks. The work-in progress paper presents design principles, functionalities and structure of the facility, and outlines deployment plans in education, training, research and development in the academic and industrial sectors. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V

Whisking with robots from rat vibrissae to biomimetic technology for active touch

This article summarizes some of the key features of the rat vibrissal system, including the actively controlled sweeping movements of the vibrissae known as whisking, and reviews the past and ongoing research aimed at replicating some of this functionality in biomimetic robots

Industry 5.0 narrative: utopia and reality

The paper analyses INDUSTRY 5.0 definition and its narrative on a broad and didactical discussion to explain and clarify is better thanking care of the narrative, political fashions, and gurus. We need to start with figures. A start should be a deep understanding of the information economy and a critique of the INDUSTRY 4.0 definition. The sustainable development and human wellbeing narrative is an umbrella for discussion used especially today as political goals. But when we seek global indexes, it is easy to see how is manipulated the general narrative. The result and the suggestion of the paper are to change the horizon and the goals of the new INDUSTRY 5.0 narrative into a new Social and environmental development model starting from the economics drivers and avoiding the false narrative of a technology or fake environmental ideology-driven pink futureThe paper analyses INDUSTRY 5.0 definition and its narrative on a broad and didactical discussion to explain and clarify is better thanking care of the narrative, political fashions, and gurus. We need to start with figures. A start should be a deep understanding of the information economy and a critique of the INDUSTRY 4.0 definition. The sustainable development and human wellbeing narrative is an umbrella for discussion used especially today as political goals. But when we seek global indexes, it is easy to see how is manipulated the general narrative. The result and the suggestion of the paper are to change the horizon and the goals of the new INDUSTRY 5.0 narrative into a new Social and environmental development model starting from the economics drivers and avoiding the false narrative of a technology or fake environmental ideology-driven pink futur

Robot Consciousness: Physics and Metaphysics Here and Abroad

Interest has been renewed in the study of consciousness, both theoretical and applied, following developments in 20th and early 21st-century logic, metamathematics, computer science, and the brain sciences. In this evolving narrative, I explore several theoretical questions about the types of artificial intelligence and offer several conjectures about how they affect possible future developments in this exceptionally transformative field of research. I also address the practical significance of the advances in artificial intelligence in view of the cautions issued by prominent scientists, politicians, and ethicists about the possible dangers of such sufficiently advanced general intelligence, including by implication the search for extraterrestrial intelligence