An Expressive Robotic Table to Enhance Social Interactions

We take initial steps into prototyping an expressive robotic table that can serve as a social mediator. The work is constructed through a rapid prototyping process consisting of five workshopbased phases with five interaction design participants. We report on the various prototyping techniques that led to the generated concept of an expressive robotic table. Our design process explores how expressive motion cues such as respiratory movements can be leveraged to mediate social interactions between people in cold outdoor environments. We conclude by discussing the implications of the different prototyping methods applied and the envisioned future directions of the work within the scope of expressive robotics

The Effects of Heuristic Optimisations on Planning Algorithms Within Cooperative AI: Cooperative Planning in Overcooked

Cooperative AI is AI designed to cooperate with humans. One example of such an AI, made using planning algorithms, was studied in a paper from 2019 which used a simplified version of the video game Overcooked for evaluation. However, only limited evaluations were possible due to the long runtime and heuristic optimisations made. This paper will attempt to increase the amount of evaluations while removing an important optimisation limiting the functionality of the AI: the omission of counters. In the end it will find ways of reducing the runtime and increasing performance, which together allow for the addition of counters in a few instances. The final results with counters suggest there is more to gain upon removal of a select few heuristic optimisations and improvement of the human behavioural clone used to simulate a human.CSE3000 Research ProjectComputer Science and Engineerin