Virtual Reality Games for Motor Rehabilitation

This paper presents a fuzzy logic based method to track user satisfaction without the need for devices to monitor users physiological conditions. User satisfaction is the key to any product’s acceptance; computer applications and video games provide a unique opportunity to provide a tailored environment for each user to better suit their needs. We have implemented a non-adaptive fuzzy logic model of emotion, based on the emotional component of the Fuzzy Logic Adaptive Model of Emotion (FLAME) proposed by El-Nasr, to estimate player emotion in UnrealTournament 2004. In this paper we describe the implementation of this system and present the results of one of several play tests. Our research contradicts the current literature that suggests physiological measurements are needed. We show that it is possible to use a software only method to estimate user emotion

Proceedings of the International Workshop on EuroPLOT Persuasive Technology for Learning, Education and Teaching (IWEPLET 2013)

"This book contains the proceedings of the International Workshop on EuroPLOT Persuasive Technology for Learning, Education and Teaching (IWEPLET) 2013 which was held on 16.-17.September 2013 in Paphos (Cyprus) in conjunction with the EC-TEL conference. The workshop and hence the proceedings are divided in two parts: on Day 1 the EuroPLOT project and its results are introduced, with papers about the specific case studies and their evaluation. On Day 2, peer-reviewed papers are presented which address specific topics and issues going beyond the EuroPLOT scope. This workshop is one of the deliverables (D 2.6) of the EuroPLOT project, which has been funded from November 2010 – October 2013 by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) of the European Commission through the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLL) by grant #511633. The purpose of this project was to develop and evaluate Persuasive Learning Objects and Technologies (PLOTS), based on ideas of BJ Fogg. The purpose of this workshop is to summarize the findings obtained during this project and disseminate them to an interested audience. Furthermore, it shall foster discussions about the future of persuasive technology and design in the context of learning, education and teaching. The international community working in this area of research is relatively small. Nevertheless, we have received a number of high-quality submissions which went through a peer-review process before being selected for presentation and publication. We hope that the information found in this book is useful to the reader and that more interest in this novel approach of persuasive design for teaching/education/learning is stimulated. We are very grateful to the organisers of EC-TEL 2013 for allowing to host IWEPLET 2013 within their organisational facilities which helped us a lot in preparing this event. I am also very grateful to everyone in the EuroPLOT team for collaborating so effectively in these three years towards creating excellent outputs, and for being such a nice group with a very positive spirit also beyond work. And finally I would like to thank the EACEA for providing the financial resources for the EuroPLOT project and for being very helpful when needed. This funding made it possible to organise the IWEPLET workshop without charging a fee from the participants.

Therapeutic and educational objectives in robot assisted play for children with autism

“This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder." “Copyright IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.” DOI: 10.1109/ROMAN.2009.5326251This article is a methodological paper that describes the therapeutic and educational objectives that were identified during the design process of a robot aimed at robot assisted play. The work described in this paper is part of the IROMEC project (Interactive Robotic Social Mediators as Companions) that recognizes the important role of play in child development and targets children who are prevented from or inhibited in playing. The project investigates the role of an interactive, autonomous robotic toy in therapy and education for children with special needs. This paper specifically addresses the therapeutic and educational objectives related to children with autism. In recent years, robots have already been used to teach basic social interaction skills to children with autism. The added value of the IROMEC robot is that play scenarios have been developed taking children's specific strengths and needs into consideration and covering a wide range of objectives in children's development areas (sensory, communicational and interaction, motor, cognitive and social and emotional). The paper describes children's developmental areas and illustrates how different experiences and interactions with the IROMEC robot are designed to target objectives in these areas

Therapeutic and educational objectives in robot assisted play for children with autism

“This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder." “Copyright IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.” DOI: 10.1109/ROMAN.2009.5326251This article is a methodological paper that describes the therapeutic and educational objectives that were identified during the design process of a robot aimed at robot assisted play. The work described in this paper is part of the IROMEC project (Interactive Robotic Social Mediators as Companions) that recognizes the important role of play in child development and targets children who are prevented from or inhibited in playing. The project investigates the role of an interactive, autonomous robotic toy in therapy and education for children with special needs. This paper specifically addresses the therapeutic and educational objectives related to children with autism. In recent years, robots have already been used to teach basic social interaction skills to children with autism. The added value of the IROMEC robot is that play scenarios have been developed taking children's specific strengths and needs into consideration and covering a wide range of objectives in children's development areas (sensory, communicational and interaction, motor, cognitive and social and emotional). The paper describes children's developmental areas and illustrates how different experiences and interactions with the IROMEC robot are designed to target objectives in these areas.Final Published versio

Human-centred design methods : developing scenarios for robot assisted play informed by user panels and field trials

Original article can be found at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/ Copyright ElsevierThis article describes the user-centred development of play scenarios for robot assisted play, as part of the multidisciplinary IROMEC1 project that develops a novel robotic toy for children with special needs. The project investigates how robotic toys can become social mediators, encouraging children with special needs to discover a range of play styles, from solitary to collaborative play (with peers, carers/teachers, parents, etc.). This article explains the developmental process of constructing relevant play scenarios for children with different special needs. Results are presented from consultation with panel of experts (therapists, teachers, parents) who advised on the play needs for the various target user groups and who helped investigate how robotic toys could be used as a play tool to assist in the children’s development. Examples from experimental investigations are provided which have informed the development of scenarios throughout the design process. We conclude by pointing out the potential benefit of this work to a variety of research projects and applications involving human–robot interactions.Peer reviewe

Shared task representation for human–robot collaborative navigation: the collaborative search case

© The Author(s) 2023Recent research in Human Robot Collaboration (HRC) has spread and specialised in many sub-fields. Many show considerable advances, but the human–robot collaborative navigation (HRCN) field seems to be stuck focusing on implicit collaboration settings, on hypothetical or simulated task allocation problems, on shared autonomy or on having the human as a manager. This work takes a step forward by presenting an end-to-end system capable of handling real-world human–robot collaborative navigation tasks. This system makes use of the Social Reward Sources model (SRS), a knowledge representation to simultaneously tackle task allocation and path planning, proposes a multi-agent Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) planner for human–robot teams, presents the collaborative search as a testbed for HRCN and studies the usage of smartphones for communication in this setting. The detailed experiments prove the viability of the approach, explore collaboration roles adopted by the human–robot team and test the acceptability and utility of different communication interface designs.Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. This work was supported under the Spanish State Research Agency through the Maria de Maeztu Seal of Excellence to IRI (MDM-2016-0656) and ROCOTRANSP project (PID2019- 106702RB-C21 / AEI / 10.13039/501100011033), the European research grant TERRINet (H2020-INFRAIA-2017-1-730994) and by JST Moonshot R & D Grant Number JPMJMS2011-85.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Designing Sound for Social Robots: Advancing Professional Practice through Design Principles

Sound is one of the core modalities social robots can use to communicate with the humans around them in rich, engaging, and effective ways. While a robot's auditory communication happens predominantly through speech, a growing body of work demonstrates the various ways non-verbal robot sound can affect humans, and researchers have begun to formulate design recommendations that encourage using the medium to its full potential. However, formal strategies for successful robot sound design have so far not emerged, current frameworks and principles are largely untested and no effort has been made to survey creative robot sound design practice. In this dissertation, I combine creative practice, expert interviews, and human-robot interaction studies to advance our understanding of how designers can best ideate, create, and implement robot sound. In a first step, I map out a design space that combines established sound design frameworks with insights from interviews with robot sound design experts. I then systematically traverse this space across three robot sound design explorations, investigating (i) the effect of artificial movement sound on how robots are perceived, (ii) the benefits of applying compositional theory to robot sound design, and (iii) the role and potential of spatially distributed robot sound. Finally, I implement the designs from prior chapters into humanoid robot Diamandini, and deploy it as a case study. Based on a synthesis of the data collection and design practice conducted across the thesis, I argue that the creation of robot sound is best guided by four design perspectives: fiction (sound as a means to convey a narrative), composition (sound as its own separate listening experience), plasticity (sound as something that can vary and adapt over time), and space (spatial distribution of sound as a separate communication channel). The conclusion of the thesis presents these four perspectives and proposes eleven design principles across them which are supported by detailed examples. This work contributes an extensive body of design principles, process models, and techniques providing researchers and designers with new tools to enrich the way robots communicate with humans

NASA space station automation: AI-based technology review

Research and Development projects in automation for the Space Station are discussed. Artificial Intelligence (AI) based automation technologies are planned to enhance crew safety through reduced need for EVA, increase crew productivity through the reduction of routine operations, increase space station autonomy, and augment space station capability through the use of teleoperation and robotics. AI technology will also be developed for the servicing of satellites at the Space Station, system monitoring and diagnosis, space manufacturing, and the assembly of large space structures

Curriculum –Releasing Maths Anxiety with the Use of Robotics

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio