A Software Suite for the Control and the Monitoring of Adaptive Robotic Ecologies

Adaptive robotic ecologies are networks of heterogeneous robotic devices (sensors, actuators, automated appliances) pervasively embedded in everyday environments, where they learn to cooperate towards the achievement of complex tasks. While their flexibility makes them an increasingly popular way to improve a system’s reliability, scalability, robustness and autonomy, their effective realisation demands integrated control and software solutions for the specification, integration and management of their highly heterogeneous and computational constrained components. In this extended abstract we briefly illustrate the characteristic requirements dictated by robotic ecologies, discuss our experience in developing adaptive robotic ecologies, and provide an overview of the specific solutions developed as part of the EU FP7 RUBICON Project

Robocare, un progetto pilota su tecnologie intelligenti per aiutare anziani in casa

No abstract availabl

Integrated Planning and Scheduling in the RoboCare Project

No abstract availableThis article sketches the research of the Planning and Scheduling Unit of the ROBOCARE Project, aimed at designing and implementing distributed systems for generating user services for the care of the elderly. We will briefly outline the lines of research our unit is involved in

Combining task and motion planning:challenges and guidelines

Combined Task and Motion Planning (TAMP) is an area where no one-fits-all solution can exist. Many aspects of the domain, as well as operational requirements, have an effect on how algorithms and representations are designed. Frequently, trade-offs have to be made to build a system that is effective. We propose five research questions that we believe need to be answered to solve real-world problems that involve combined TAMP. We show which decisions and trade-offs should be made with respect to these research questions, and illustrate these on examples of existing application domains. By doing so, this article aims to provide a guideline for designing combined TAMP solutions that are adequate and effective in the target scenario

A framework for culture-aware robots based on fuzzy logic

Cultural adaptation, i.e., the matching of a robot's behaviours to the cultural norms and preferences of its user, is a well known key requirement for the success of any assistive application. However, culture-dependent robot behaviours are often implicitly set by designers, thus not allowing for an easy and automatic adaptation to different cultures. This paper presents a method for the design of culture-aware robots, that can automatically adapt their behaviour to conform to a given culture. We propose a mapping from cultural factors to related parameters of robot behaviours which relies on linguistic variables to encode heterogeneous cultural factors in a uniform formalism, and on fuzzy rules to encode qualitative relations among multiple variables. We illustrate the approach in two practical case studies

Psychological implications of domestic assistive technology for the elderly

The ROBOCARE Domestic Environment (RDE) is the result of a three-year project aimed at developing cognitive support technology for elderly people. Specifically, the domestic environment is equipped with sensors, intelligent software components and devices which cooperate to provide cognitive support to the assisted person. The ROBOCARE interaction capabilities have been concentrated in a robotic mediator who acts as the main communication channel between the users and the intelligent domestic environment. This paper presents an evaluation of elderly people\u27s perception of assistive robots and smart domotic environments. Results show how the acceptability of robotic devices in home settino does not depend only on the practical benefits they can provide, but also on complex relationships between the cognitive, affective and emotional components of people\u27s images of robot. Specially, we analyzes a number of evaluation criteria related to the robot\u27s aspect, the way in which it communicates with the user, and the perceived usefulness of its support services. Among these criteria, the paper proposes and reports an evaluation of how perceived frailty, with reference to both health in general and fear of cognitive weakening, more specifically, can influence the evaluation of a potential aid in everyday life, namely the robotic assistant. The paper also provides a discussion which can be useful for the design of future assistive agents and socially interactive robotic

Caring About the User\u27s View: The Joys and Sorrows of Experiments with People

Deploying AI, and specifically P&S, technology into the real world entails many stimulating problems for researchers and system designers. Various smart solutions have been produced both for specialized problems and, in fewer cases, for more general purpose domains. An important aspect which is fundamental for any successful application, and more specifically for those which address a broad audience, concerns the users\u27 perception and acceptance of technology. This issue is often either neglected or underestimated. We have been working for two years on the issue of importing experimental techniques from HCI and experimental psychology into smart system development. This approach has both pros - interesting features from the user perspective are discovered and can be used to bias design and research activities - and cons - experimenting with humans adds additional difficulty to the project, and applying a correct methodology is very time consuming. This paper describes a fielded experimental investigation of a fully implemented AI system named ROBO CARE . The system uses constraint-based scheduling technology to actively monitor a pattern of activities executed by an assisted person and uses detected temporal constraint violations to trigger meaningful and contextualized proactive interaction. Dialogue with the users is managed by a robotic mediator who acts as the main communication channel between the users and the intelligent domestic environment. The paper presents an evaluation of elderly people\u27s perception of the intelligent system, focusing on aspects related to the robot\u27s aspect, interaction modalities, content and timing of interaction, providing suggestions and hints for system designers

A loosely-coupled approach for multi-robot coordination, motion planning and control

Deploying fleets of autonomous robots in real-world applications requires addressing three problems: motion planning, coordination, and control. Application-specific features of the environment and robots often narrow down the possible motion planning and control methods that can be used. This paper proposes a lightweight coordination method that implements a high-level controller for a fleet of potentially heterogeneous robots. Very few assumptions are made on robot controllers, which are required only to be able to accept set point updates and to report their current state. The approach can be used with any motion planning method for computing kinematically-feasible paths. Coordination uses heuristics to update priorities while robots are in motion, and a simple model of robot dynamics to guarantee dynamic feasibility. The approach avoids a priori discretization of the environment or of robot paths, allowing robots to "follow each other" through critical sections. We validate the method formally and experimentally with different motion planners and robot controllers, in simulation and with real robots