AAAI Fall Symposium: Patrícia Alves-Oliveira on human-robot interplay design

Anton Grabolle / Better Images of AI / Human-AI collaboration / Licenced by CC-BY 4.0

The AAAI Fall Symposium Series happened in Arlington, USA, and comprised seven completely different symposia. One of those, the tenth Artificial Intelligence for Human-Robot Interaction (AI-HRI) symposium was run as a hybrid in-person/on-line occasion, and we tuned in to the opening keynote, which was given by Patrícia Alves-Oliveira.

As a psychology pupil, Patrícia’s dream was to turn into a therapist. However, an internship, the place she encountered a robotic for the primary time, impressed her to alter her plans, and she or he determined to enter the sphere of human-robot interplay. Following a PhD within the subject, she labored as a postdoc, earlier than heading to business as a designer within the Amazon Astro robotic crew.

Patrícia has labored on quite a lot of fascinating initiatives throughout her time in academia and in business. Thinking about tips on how to design robots for particular person wants, and protecting the person on the forefront throughout the design course of, has been core to her work. She started by summarising three very completely different tutorial initiatives.

Creativity and robotics

The goal of this venture was to design, fabricate, and consider robots as creativity-provoking instruments for youths. Patrícia created a social robotic named YOLO (or Your Own Living Object) that she designed to be child-proof (in different phrases, it may face up to being dropped and knocked over), with the intention of making an attempt to assist kids discover their creativity throughout play. A machine studying algorithm learns the sample of play that the kid has and adapts the robotic behaviour accordingly. You can see the robotic in motion within the demo under:

FLEXI robotic

As a postdoc venture, Patrícia labored on constructing FLEXI, a social robotic embodiment package. This package consists of a robotic (with a face, and a torso with a display screen on the entrance), which might be customised, and an open-source end-user programming interface designed to be user-friendly. The customisation aspect implies that it may be used for a lot of functions. The crew has deployed FLEXI throughout three utility eventualities: community-support, psychological well being, and schooling, with the intention of assessing the flexibleness of the system. You can see the robotic in motion, in numerous eventualities, right here.

Social eating

This venture centred on a robotic arm for individuals with impaired mobility. Such programs exist already for aiding individuals with duties resembling consuming. However, in a social context they’ll typically type a barrier between the person and the remainder of the group. The concept behind this venture was to contemplate how such a robotic could possibly be tailored to work effectively in a social context, for instance, throughout a meal with household or mates. The crew interviewed individuals with impaired mobility to evaluate their wants, and got here up with a set of design ideas for creating robot-assisted feeding programs and an implementation information for future analysis on this space. You can learn the analysis paper on this venture right here.

You can discover out extra about these three initiatives, and the opposite initiatives that Patrícia has been concerned in, right here.

Astro robotic

Patrícia has lengthy been occupied with robots for the true world, and the way this real-world expertise is aligned with the examine of robots in academia and business. She determined to depart academia and be part of the Astro robotic programme, which she felt was an awesome alternative to work on a large-scale real-world robotic venture.

The Astro robotic is a house robotic designed to help with duties resembling monitoring your own home, delivering small objects throughout the residence, recognising your pet, telling a narrative, or enjoying video games.

Patrícia took us via a typical day within the lifetime of a designer the place she at all times has in thoughts the larger image of what the crew is aiming for, in different phrases, what the perfect robotic, and its interactions with people, would seem like. Coupled to that, the method is ruled by core design tenets, such because the buyer wants, and non-negotiable core components that the robotic ought to embody. When contemplating a specific aspect of the robotic design, for instance, the supply of an merchandise within the robotic tray, Patrícia makes use of storyboards to map out particulars of potential human-robot interactions. An vital side of design issues edge instances, which happen frequently in the true world. Good design will take into account potential edge instances and incorporate methods to cope with them.

Patrícia closed by emphasising the significance of teamwork within the design course of, particularly, the necessity for interdisciplinary groups; by contemplating design from many alternative factors of view, the possibility of innovation is larger.

You can discover out extra in regards to the Artificial Intelligence for Human-Robot Interaction (AI-HRI) symposium right here.