Design and Evaluation of a Tangible-Mediated Robot for Kindergarten Instruction

© ACM 2015. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in ACE '15 Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2832932.2832952Entertainment technology increases children’s engagement in educational activities designed to develop abilities ranging from collaborative problem-solving and cognitive attention to self-esteem. However, little research has been done on designing educational and entertaining interactive technology for kindergarten children (up to 5 years old). Furthermore, most of the work in this area has considered traditional input devices such as the mouse and keyboard, which are not suitable for these very young children. More recently, other more intuitive means of interaction (touch and tangible interfaces) and advanced educational artifacts such as robots have emerged. In this work we therefore present a joint collaboration between technologists and kindergarten instructors to design and evaluate a technological platform using a mobile robot for kindergarten instruction, as well as an intuitive and user-friendly tangible user interface. The results obtained suggest the platform is not only usable by kindergarten children, but it also allows them to be fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In addition, the instructors reported that the system was well accepted and praised its versatility in use as a supporting tool for their everyday classroom activities.This work is funded by the European Development Regional Fund (EDRF-FEDER) and supported by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness with Project TIN2014-60077-R, and from Universitat Politècnica de València under Project UPV-FE-2014-24. It is also supported by fellowship ACIF/2014/214within the VALi+d program from Conselleria d’Educació, Cultura i Esport (Generalitat Valenciana), and by fellowship FPU14/00136 within the FPU program from Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport.García Sanjuan, F.; Jaén Martínez, FJ.; Nácher-Soler, VE.; Catalá Bolós, A. (2015). Design and Evaluation of a Tangible-Mediated Robot for Kindergarten Instruction. ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2832932.2832952SDiana Africano, Sara Berg, Kent Lindbergh, Peter Lundholm, Fredrik Nilbrink, and Anna Persson. 2004. Designing Tangible Interfaces for Children's Collaboration.CHI '04 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM, 853--868. http://doi.org/10.1145/985921.985945Alissa N. Antle. 2013. 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Development of a Robotic Nanny for Children and a Case Study of Emotion Recognition in Human-Robotic Interaction

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Evaluation of artificial mouths in social robots

The external aspects of a robot affect how people behave and perceive it while interacting. In this paper, we study the importance of the mouth displayed by a social robot and explore how different designs of an artificial LED-based mouths alter the participants' judgments of a robot's attributes and their attention to the robot's message. We evaluated participants' judgments of a speaking robot under four conditions: 1) without a mouth; 2) with a static smile; 3) with a vibrating, wave-shaped mouth; and 4) with a moving, human-like mouth. A total of 79 participants evaluated their perceptions of an on-video robot showing one of the four conditions. The results show that the presence of a mouth, as well as its design, alters the perception of the robot. In particular, the presence of a mouth makes the robot to be perceived more lifelike and less sad. The human-like mouth was the one participants liked the most and, along with the smile, they were the friendliest ones. On the contrary, participants rated the mouthless robot and the one with the wave-like mouth as the most dangerous ones.Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (DPI2014-57684-R); in part by the MOnarCH, funded by the European Commission (Grant Agreement 601033); and in part by the RoboCity2030-III-CM, funded by the Comunidad de Madrid and cofunded by the Structural Funds of the EU (S2013/MIT-2748)

Supporting active and healthy aging with advanced robotics integrated in smart environment

The technological advances in the robotic and ICT fields represent an effective solution to address specific societal problems to support ageing and independent life. One of the key factors for these technologies is the integration of service robotics for optimising social services and improving quality of life of the elderly population. This chapter aims to underline the barriers of the state of the art, furthermore the authors present their concrete experiences to overcome these barriers gained at the RoboTown Living Lab of Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna within past and current projects. They analyse and discuss the results in order to give recommendations based on their experiences. Furthermore, this work highlights the trend of development from stand-alone solutions to cloud computing architecture, describing the future research directions

A systematic literature review of decision-making and control systems for autonomous and social robots

In the last years, considerable research has been carried out to develop robots that can improve our quality of life during tedious and challenging tasks. In these contexts, robots operating without human supervision open many possibilities to assist people in their daily activities. When autonomous robots collaborate with humans, social skills are necessary for adequate communication and cooperation. Considering these facts, endowing autonomous and social robots with decision-making and control models is critical for appropriately fulfiling their initial goals. This manuscript presents a systematic review of the evolution of decision-making systems and control architectures for autonomous and social robots in the last three decades. These architectures have been incorporating new methods based on biologically inspired models and Machine Learning to enhance these systems’ possibilities to developed societies. The review explores the most novel advances in each application area, comparing their most essential features. Additionally, we describe the current challenges of software architecture devoted to action selection, an analysis not provided in similar reviews of behavioural models for autonomous and social robots. Finally, we present the future directions that these systems can take in the future.The research leading to these results has received funding from the projects: Robots Sociales para Estimulación Física, Cognitiva y Afectiva de Mayores (ROSES), RTI2018-096338-B-I00, funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades; Robots sociales para mitigar la soledad y el aislamiento en mayores (SOROLI), PID2021-123941OA-I00, funded by Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI), Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación. This publication is part of the R&D&I project PLEC2021-007819 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by the European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR

Knowledge Domains Where Robots are Trusted

The general public is being exposed to robots more often every day. This thesis focused on the advancement of research by analyzing whether or not the type of information provided by a robot determined the level of trust humans have for a robot. A study was conducted where the participants were asked to answer two different types of questions: mathematical/logical and ethical/social. The participants were divided into two different conditions: controlled and misinformed. A humanoid robot provided its own spoken answer after the participants said their answers. The participants then had the chance to select whose answers they would like to keep. During the misinformed condition, there were times when the robot purposely gave incorrect answers. The results of the study support the hypothesis that the participants were more likely to select the robot’s answers when the question type was mathematical/logical, whether the robot provided a correct or incorrect response

Knowledge Domains Where Robots are Trusted

The general public is being exposed to robots more often every day. This thesis focused on the advancement of research by analyzing whether or not the type of information provided by a robot determined the level of trust humans have for a robot. A study was conducted where the participants were asked to answer two different types of questions: mathematical/logical and ethical/social. The participants were divided into two different conditions: controlled and misinformed. A humanoid robot provided its own spoken answer after the participants said their answers. The participants then had the chance to select whose answers they would like to keep. During the misinformed condition, there were times when the robot purposely gave incorrect answers. The results of the study support the hypothesis that the participants were more likely to select the robot’s answers when the question type was mathematical/logical, whether the robot provided a correct or incorrect response

자동차 사양 변경을 실시간 반영하는 데이터 기반 디자인 접근 방법

학위논문 (박사) -- 서울대학교 대학원 : 융합과학기술대학원 융합과학부(지능형융합시스템전공), 2020. 8. 곽노준.The automotive industry is entering a new phase in response to changes in the external environment through the expansion of eco-friendly electric/hydrogen vehicles and the simplification of modules during the manufacturing process. However, in the existing automotive industry, conflicts between structured production guidelines and various stake-holders, who are aligned with periodic production plans, can be problematic. For example, if there is a sudden need to change either production parts or situation-specific designs, it is often difficult for designers to reflect those requirements within the preexisting guidelines. Automotive design includes comprehensive processes that represent the philosophy and ideology of a vehicle, and seeks to derive maximum value from the vehicle specifications. In this study, a system that displays information on parts/module components necessary for real-time design was proposed. Designers will be able to use this system in automotive design processes, based on data from various sources. By applying the system, three channels of information provision were established. These channels will aid in the replacement of specific component parts if an unexpected external problem occurs during the design process, and will help in understanding and using the components in advance. The first approach is to visualize real-time data aggregation in automobile factories using Google Analytics, and to reflect these in self-growing characters to be provided to designers. Through this, it is possible to check production and quality status data in real time without the use of complicated labor resources such as command centers. The second approach is to configure the data flow to be able to recognize and analyze the surrounding situation. This is done by applying the vehicles camera to the CCTV in the inventory and distribution center, as well as the direction inside the vehicle. Therefore, it is possible to identify and record the parts resources and real-time delivery status from the internal camera function without hesitation from existing stakeholders. The final approach is to supply real-time databases of vehicle parts at the site of an accident for on-site repair, using a public API and sensor-based IoT. This allows the designer to obtain information on the behavior of parts to be replaced after accidents involving light contact, so that it can be reflected in the design of the vehicle. The advantage of using these three information channels is that designers can accurately understand and reflect the modules and components that are brought in during the automotive design process. In order to easily compose the interface for the purpose of providing information, the information coming from the three channels is displayed in their respective, case-specific color in the CAD software that designers use in the automobile development process. Its eye tracking usability evaluation makes it easy for business designers to use as well. The improved evaluation process including usability test is also included in this study. The impact of the research is both dashboard application and CAD system as well as data systems from case studies are currently reflected to the design ecosystem of the motors group.자동차 산업은 친환경 전기/수소 자동차의 확대와 제조 공정에서의 모듈 단순화를 통해서 외부 환경의 변화에 따른 새로운 국면을 맞이하고 있다. 하지만 기존의 자동차 산업에서 구조화된 생산 가이드라인과 기간 단위 생산 계획에 맞춰진 여러 이해관계자들과의 갈등은 변화에 대응하는 방안이 관성과 부딪히는 문제로 나타날 수 있다. 예를 들어, 갑작스럽게 생산에 필요한 부품을 변경해야 하거나 특정 상황에 적용되는 디자인을 변경할 경우, 주어진 가이드라인에 따라 디자이너가 직접 의견을 반영하기 어려운 경우가 많다. 자동차 디자인은 차종의 철학과 이념을 나타내고 해당 차량제원으로 최대의 가치를 끌어내고자 하는 종합적인 과정이다. 본 연구에서는 여러 원천의 데이터를 기반으로 자동차 디자인 과정에서 활용할 수 있도록 디자인에 필요한 부품/모듈 구성요소들에 대한 정보를 실시간으로 표시해주는 시스템을 고안하였다. 이를 적용하여 자동차 디자인 과정에서 예상 못한 외부 문제가 발생했을 때 선택할 구성 부품을 대체하거나 사전에 해당 부품을 이해하고 디자인에 활용할 수 있도록 세 가지 정보 제공 채널을 구성하였다. 첫 번째는 자동차 공장 내 실시간 데이터 집계를 Google Analytics를 활용하여 시각화하고, 이를 공장 자체의 자가 성장 캐릭터에 반영하여 디자이너에게 제공하는 방식이다. 이를 통해 종합상황실 등의 복잡한 인력 체계 없이도 생산 및 품질 현황 데이터를 실시간으로 확인 가능하도록 하였다. 두 번째는 차량용 주차보조 센서 카메라를 차량 부착 뿐만 아니라 인벤토리와 물류센터의 CCTV에도 적용하여 주변상황을 인식하고 분석할 수 있도록 구성하였다. 차량의 조립 생산 단계에서 부품 단위의 이동, 운송, 출하를 거쳐 완성차의 주행 단계에 이르기까지 데이터 흐름을 파악하는 것이 디자인 부문에 필요한 정보를 제공할 수 있는 방법으로 활용되었다. 이를 통해 기존 이해관계자들의 큰 반발 없이 내부의 카메라 기능으로부터 부품 리소스와 운송 상태를 실시간 파악 및 기록 가능하도록 하였다. 마지막으로 공공 API와 센서 기반의 사물인터넷을 활용해서 도로 위 차량 사고가 발생한 위치에서의 현장 수리를 위한 차량 부품 즉시 수급 및 데이터베이스화 방법도 개발 되었다. 이는 디자이너로 하여금 가벼운 접촉 사고에서의 부품 교체 행태에 대한 정보를 얻게 하여 차량의 디자인에 반영 가능하도록 하였다. 시나리오를 바탕으로 이 세 가지 정보 제공 채널을 활용할 경우, 자동차 디자인 과정에서 불러들여오는 부품 및 모듈의 구성 요소들을 디자이너가 정확히 알고 반영할 수 있다는 장점이 부각되었다. 정보 제공의 인터페이스를 쉽게 구성하기 위해서, 실제로 디자이너들이 자동차 개발 과정에서 디자인 프로세스 상에서 활용하는 CAD software에 세 가지 채널들로부터 들어오는 정보를 사례별 컬러로 표시하고, 이를 시선추적 사용성 평가를 통해 현업 디자이너들이 사용하기 쉽게 개선한 과정도 본 연구에 포함시켜 설명하였다.1 Introduction 1 1.1 Research Background 1 1.2 Objective and Scope 2 1.3 Environmental Changes 3 1.4 Research Method 3 1.4.1 Causal Inference with Graphical Model 3 1.4.2 Design Thinking Methodology with Co-Evolution 4 1.4.3 Required Resources 4 1.5 Research Flow 4 2 Data-driven Design 7 2.1 Big Data and Data Management 6 2.1.1 Artificial Intelligence and Data Economy 6 2.1.2 API (Application Programming Interface) 7 2.1.3 AI driven Data Management for Designer 7 2.2 Datatype from Automotive Industry 8 2.2.1 Data-driven Management in Automotive Industry 8 2.2.2 Automotive Parts Case Studies 8 2.2.3 Parameter for Generative Design 9 2.3 Examples of Data-driven Design 9 2.3.1 Responsive-reactive 9 2.3.2 Dynamic Document Design 9 2.3.3 Insignts from Data-driven Design 10 3 Benchmark of Data-driven Automotive Design 12 3.1 Method of Global Benchmarking 11 3.2 Automotive Design 11 3.2.1 HMI Design and UI/UX 11 3.2.2 Hardware Design 12 3.2.3 Software Design 12 3.2.4 Convergence Design Process Model 13 3.3 Component Design Management 14 4 Vehicle Specification Design in Mobility Industry 16 4.1 Definition of Vehicle Specification 16 4.2 Field Study 17 4.3 Hypothesis 18 5 Three Preliminary Practical Case Studies for Vehicle Specification to Datadriven 21 5.1 Production Level 31 5.1.1 Background and Input 31 5.1.2 Data Process from Inventory to Designer 41 5.1.3 Output to Designer 51 5.2 Delivery Level 61 5.2.1 Background and Input 61 5.2.2 Data Process from Inventory to Designer 71 5.2.3 Output to Designer 81 5.3 Consumer Level 91 5.3.1 Background and Input 91 5.3.2 Data Process from Inventory to Designer 101 5.3.3 Output to Designer 111 6 Two Applications for Vehicle Designer 86 6.1 Real-time Dashboard DB for Decision Making 123 6.1.1 Searchable Infographic as a Designer's Tool 123 6.1.2 Scope and Method 123 6.1.3 Implementation 123 6.1.4 Result 124 6.1.5 Evaluation 124 6.1.6 Summary 124 6.2 Application to CAD for vehicle designer 124 6.2.1 CAD as a Designer's Tool 124 6.2.2 Scope and Method 125 6.2.3 Implementation and the Display of the CAD Software 125 6.2.4 Result 125 6.2.5 Evaluation: Usability Test with Eyetracking 126 6.2.6 Summary 128 7 Conclusion 96 7.1 Summary of Case Studies and Application Release 129 7.2 Impact of the Research 130 7.3 Further Study 131Docto

Studies on user control in ambient intelligent systems

People have a deeply rooted need to experience control and be effective in interactions with their environments. At present times, we are surrounded by intelligent systems that take decisions and perform actions for us. This should make life easier, but there is a risk that users experience less control and reject the system. The central question in this thesis is whether we can design intelligent systems that have a degree of autonomy, while users maintain a sense of control. We try to achieve this by giving the intelligent system an 'expressive interface’: the part that provides information to the user about the internal state, intentions and actions of the system. We examine this question both in the home and the work environment.We find the notion of a ‘system personality’ useful as a guiding principle for designing interactions with intelligent systems, for domestic robots as well as in building automation. Although the desired system personality varies per application, in both domains a recognizable system personality can be designed through expressive interfaces using motion, light, sound, and social cues. The various studies show that the level of automation and the expressive interface can influence the perceived system personality, the perceived level of control, and user’s satisfaction with the system. This thesis shows the potential of the expressive interface as an instrument to help users understand what is going on inside the system and to experience control, which might be essential for the successful adoption of the intelligent systems of the future.<br/

Autonomous Decision-Making based on Biological Adaptive Processes for Intelligent Social Robots

Mención Internacional en el título de doctorThe unceasing development of autonomous robots in many different scenarios drives a new revolution to improve our quality of life. Recent advances in human-robot interaction and machine learning extend robots to social scenarios, where these systems pretend to assist humans in diverse tasks. Thus, social robots are nowadays becoming real in many applications like education, healthcare, entertainment, or assistance. Complex environments demand that social robots present adaptive mechanisms to overcome different situations and successfully execute their tasks. Thus, considering the previous ideas, making autonomous and appropriate decisions is essential to exhibit reasonable behaviour and operate well in dynamic scenarios. Decision-making systems provide artificial agents with the capacity of making decisions about how to behave depending on input information from the environment. In the last decades, human decision-making has served researchers as an inspiration to endow robots with similar deliberation. Especially in social robotics, where people expect to interact with machines with human-like capabilities, biologically inspired decisionmaking systems have demonstrated great potential and interest. Thereby, it is expected that these systems will continue providing a solid biological background and improve the naturalness of the human-robot interaction, usability, and the acceptance of social robots in the following years. This thesis presents a decision-making system for social robots acting in healthcare, entertainment, and assistance with autonomous behaviour. The system’s goal is to provide robots with natural and fluid human-robot interaction during the realisation of their tasks. The decision-making system integrates into an already existing software architecture with different modules that manage human-robot interaction, perception, or expressiveness. Inside this architecture, the decision-making system decides which behaviour the robot has to execute after evaluating information received from different modules in the architecture. These modules provide structured data about planned activities, perceptions, and artificial biological processes that evolve with time that are the basis for natural behaviour. The natural behaviour of the robot comes from the evolution of biological variables that emulate biological processes occurring in humans. We also propose a Motivational model, a module that emulates biological processes in humans for generating an artificial physiological and psychological state that influences the robot’s decision-making. These processes emulate the natural biological rhythms of the human organism to produce biologically inspired decisions that improve the naturalness exhibited by the robot during human-robot interactions. The robot’s decisions also depend on what the robot perceives from the environment, planned events listed in the robot’s agenda, and the unique features of the user interacting with the robot. The robot’s decisions depend on many internal and external factors that influence how the robot behaves. Users are the most critical stimuli the robot perceives since they are the cornerstone of interaction. Social robots have to focus on assisting people in their daily tasks, considering that each person has different features and preferences. Thus, a robot devised for social interaction has to adapt its decisions to people that aim at interacting with it. The first step towards adapting to different users is identifying the user it interacts with. Then, it has to gather as much information as possible and personalise the interaction. The information about each user has to be actively updated if necessary since outdated information may lead the user to refuse the robot. Considering these facts, this work tackles the user adaptation in three different ways. • The robot incorporates user profiling methods to continuously gather information from the user using direct and indirect feedback methods. • The robot has a Preference Learning System that predicts and adjusts the user’s preferences to the robot’s activities during the interaction. • An Action-based Learning System grounded on Reinforcement Learning is introduced as the origin of motivated behaviour. The functionalities mentioned above define the inputs received by the decisionmaking system for adapting its behaviour. Our decision-making system has been designed for being integrated into different robotic platforms due to its flexibility and modularity. Finally, we carried out several experiments to evaluate the architecture’s functionalities during real human-robot interaction scenarios. In these experiments, we assessed: • How to endow social robots with adaptive affective mechanisms to overcome interaction limitations. • Active user profiling using face recognition and human-robot interaction. • A Preference Learning System we designed to predict and adapt the user preferences towards the robot’s entertainment activities for adapting the interaction. • A Behaviour-based Reinforcement Learning System that allows the robot to learn the effects of its actions to behave appropriately in each situation. • The biologically inspired robot behaviour using emulated biological processes and how the robot creates social bonds with each user. • The robot’s expressiveness in affect (emotion and mood) and autonomic functions such as heart rate or blinking frequency.Programa de Doctorado en Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y Automática por la Universidad Carlos III de MadridPresidente: Richard J. Duro Fernández.- Secretaria: Concepción Alicia Monje Micharet.- Vocal: Silvia Ross