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The De Gruyter Handbook of Robots in Society and Culture provides a comprehensive discussion of how social robots take form, function, and meaning for individuals, relationships, cultures, and societies. Through a path-breaking integration of perspectives coming from sociology, communication and media, psychology, cognitive neuroscience, anthropology, political science, and science and technology studies, it focuses on the critical and social meaning of present developments in social robotic technologies. This book looks at artificial agents – from voice-based assistants to humanoid robots— as their use transforms private and public contexts and gives rise to both new possibilities and new perils for human being and becoming, organizations as well as social structures and institutions. The handbook traces the consequences and key problems of social robotics across broad social contexts in both public and political as well as domestic and intimate spaces. Further, it attends carefully to the implications of social robotics for various human identity groups, including those based on gender, ethnicity, culture, class, ability, and age. Deep attention to interdisciplinarity, inclusivity, ethics, and socio-cultural futures serves as the guiding inspiration behind each contribution within this handbook.

The book's content is designed to provide practical guidance and insights for conducting experiments in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) and publishing the results in scientific journals. It includes a detailed explanation of how to conduct HRI experiments and what to do and what not to do to get an article accepted for publication. It is tailored to those seeking to deepen their understanding of HRI methodologies, statistical measurements, and research design. The case studies and examples featured in the book focus on interactions between social robots and specific demographics such as children and older adults, making it relevant for individuals working in healthcare, education, and related domains.Also covered are common statistical measurements used in HRI research and quantitative, qualitative, and meta-analyses. The concepts are illustrated with several international case studies of interactions between social robots and children and older adults and robot learning instead of programming. The final chapter explores current trends in HRI and provides insights into what to look for in the coming years. It includes an extensive reference section to help HRI researchers in all these areas.This book will appeal to an international audience of advanced students, researchers, industry, and others who are actively engaged or interested in the field of HRI.

Cognitive Assistant Supported Human-Robot Collaboration covers the design and development of cognitive assistants in the smart factory era, its application domains, challenges, and current state of the art in assistance systems with collaborative robotics and IoT technologies, standards, platforms, and solutions. This book also provides a sociotechnical view of collaborative work in human-robot teams, investigating specific methods and techniques to analyze assistance systems. This will provide readers with a comprehensive overview of how cognitive assistants function and work in human-robot teams. - Introduces fundamental concepts of cognitive assistants and human-robot collaboration - Investigates the optimization capabilities of human-cyber physical systems - Discusses planning and implementation of cognitive assistant projects - Explores concepts and design elements of human collaborative workspaces

Human-in-the-loop Learning and Control for Robot Teleoperation presents recent, research progress on teleoperation and robots, including human-robot interaction, learning and control for teleoperation with many extensions on intelligent learning techniques. The book integrates cutting-edge research on learning and control algorithms of robot teleoperation, neural motor learning control, wave variable enhancement, EMG-based teleoperation control, and other key aspects related to robot technology, presenting implementation tactics, adequate application examples and illustrative interpretations. Robots have been used in various industrial processes to reduce labor costs and improve work efficiency. However, most robots are only designed to work on repetitive and fixed tasks, leaving a gap with the human desired manufacturing effect. - Introduces research progress and technical contributions on teleoperation robots, including intelligent human-robot interactions and learning and control algorithms for teleoperation - Presents control strategies and learning algorithms to a teleoperation framework to enhance human-robot shared control, bi-directional perception and intelligence of the teleoperation system - Discusses several control and learning methods, describes the working implementation and shows how these methods can be applied to a specific and practical teleoperation system

This book provides practical guidance and awareness for a growing body of knowledge developing across a variety of disciplines and many countries. This book is a celebration of the Gavriel Salvendy International Symposium (GSIS) and provides a survey of topics and emerging areas of interest in human–automation interaction. This book for the GSIS emphasizes main thematic areas: manufacturing, services and user experience. Main areas of coverage include Section A: Advanced Production Management and Production Control; Section B: Healthcare Automation; Section C: Measuring and Modeling Human Performance; Section D: Usability and User Experience; Section E: Safety Management and Occupational Ergonomics; Section F: Manufacturing and Services; Section G: Data and Probabilistic Information; Section H: Training and Collaboration Technologies. Contributions from especially early career researchers were featured as part of this (virtual) symposium and celebration. Gavriel Salvendy initiated the conferences that run annually as Human–Computer Interaction International and Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics International (AHFE), both within the Lecture Notes in Springer. The book is inclusive of human–computer interaction and human factors and ergonomics principles, yet it is intended to serve a much wider audience that has interest in automation and human modeling. The emerging need for human–automation interaction expertise has developed from an ever-growing availability and presence of automation in our everyday lives.

A trailblazing inquiry into human love and relationships in the age of super-smart technology Technology is our new life partner. No longer confined to the sidelines, new interactive technologies like AI therapists, avatar friends, and robot assistants are ready to transform technology's role from basic tools of convenience to intimate elements of our social and emotional lives. This turn towards human-like technology signals the beginning of a new epoch in human history, a change already facing both excitement and resistance. Blending science, sociology, history, and psychology, Relationships 5.0 asks how recent technological developments cause us to think differently about our family lives, love affairs, and emotional needs. It argues that we are currently living through a technological paradigm shift similar in magnitude to the preceding agricultural, industrial, and informational revolutions in human history. Thanks to the convergence of the cognitive revolution (AI), the sensorial revolution (VR and AR), and the physical revolution (robots), technology can now fulfill emotional, intellectual, and physical needs that have until now been met by other humans. While many are still wary of human-technology companionship, Relationships 5.0 reveals that these novel interactions aren't as risky as we'd once thought, but can instead make our social and emotional lives richer and more diverse. Still, we must ask: What will the age of Relationships 5.0 look like? How should we prepare for such an age? Who might already be ready to embrace these changes, and why? Guiding readers away from fear and toward a new reality, Relationships 5.0 exposes the fundamental questions behind such essentials as companionship, trust, and love--and offers fascinating and revealing ideas about what the coming years will look like.

人と自然にコミュニケーションするAI，ロボットを設計するための入門書． コグニティブインタラクションは，従来の認知科学や情報科学だけではなしえていない，「状況に応じて，人と自然に，かつ持続的にインタラクションが可能な人工物を設計するための基礎理論」です．本書は，その入門書です． AIやロボットが人の社会生活にとけこむためには，人と協調行動をとれなければいけません．それには，コミュニケーション，つまり，意思疎通の能力が欠かせません．しかし，言語によるコミュニケーションよりも，非言語情報によるインタラクションのほうが重要になることがよくあります．相手が人であれ，動物であれ，AIやロボットなどの人工物であれ，人は相手の意図や欲求などの心的状況を読み取り，それに適応した行動をとるという，コグニティブ（認知的）インタラクションを繰り返すことで，円滑に対話を行っていると考えられるからです． 第1章では，人とAIのインタラクションについて，人どうしのインタラクションや人と動物のインタラクションをベースに考える枠組を説明しています．第2章では，インタラクションを分析していくための概念や方法を説明しています．続く第3章では，取得したデータをモデルベースで分析するために必要な，データの表現方法について説明しています．最後の第4章では，第3章までに学んだ基礎的な概念や方法を用いて，実際にどのようなインタラクションの分析が可能なのかを，これまでの事例の中から特に興味深いものに絞って説明しています． 本書を読むことで，人どうし，あるいは人と動物の間のインタラクションで起きていることを理解するためだけでなく，人と自然にコミュニケーションするAI，ロボット，そのほかの人工物を設計するための基本がわかります．

This book provides practical guidance and awareness for a growing body of knowledge developing across a variety of disciplines. This initiative is a celebration of the Gavriel Salvendy International Symposium (GSIS) and provides a survey of topics and emerging areas of interest in human–automation interaction. This set of articles for the GSIS emphasizes a main thematic areas: mobile computing. Main areas of coverage include Section A: Health, Care and Assistive Technologies; Section B: Usability, User Experience and Design; Section C: Virtual Learning, Training and Collaboration; Section D: Ergonomics in Work, Automation and Production. In total, there are more than 600 pages emphasizing contributions from especially early career researchers that were featured as part of this (virtual) symposium and celebration. Gavriel Salvendy initiated the conferences that run annually as Human–Computer Interaction within LNCS of Springer and Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics International (AHFE). The book is inclusive of human–computer interaction and human factors and ergonomics principles, yet is intended to serve a much wider audience that has interest in automation and human modeling. The emerging need for human–automation interaction expertise has developed from an ever-growing availability and presence of automation in our everyday lives. This initiative is intended to provide practical guidance and awareness for a growing body of knowledge developing across a variety of disciplines and many countries.

Als het over technologie en AI gaat, doemt vaak het beeld op van een toekomst met kwaadaardige, hyperintelligente systemen die de mens overheersen. Wij, robots daarentegen focust op wat zich voor onze ogen afspeelt: (zelfrijdende) wagens, smartphones, apps, stoommachines, kerncentrales, computers en alle andere machines waardoor we ons laten omringen. Dit boek stelt fundamentele vragen over de impact van nieuwe en oude technologie. Is technologie neutraal? Beseffen we voldoende dat Big Tech weet wat onze seksuele oriëntatie, levensbeschouwelijke voorkeur en emoties zijn? En wordt de wereld sinds de digitale revolutie bestuurd door ingenieurs, of zijn hun uitvindingen slechts een product van de samenleving? In een glasheldere stijl werpt Lode Lauwaert een filosofische en eigenzinnige blik op technologie en AI. Het resultaat is een frisse en kritische blik op dé thema's van deze tijd.

Cognitive Computing for Human-Robot Interaction: Principles and Practices explores the efforts that should ultimately enable society to take advantage of the often-heralded potential of robots to provide economical and sustainable computing applications. This book discusses each of these applications, presents working implementations, and combines coherent and original deliberative architecture for human–robot interactions (HRI). Supported by experimental results, it shows how explicit knowledge management promises to be instrumental in building richer and more natural HRI, by pushing for pervasive, human-level semantics within the robot's deliberative system for sustainable computing applications. This book will be of special interest to academics, postgraduate students, and researchers working in the area of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Key features: - Introduces several new contributions to the representation and management of humans in autonomous robotic systems; - Explores the potential of cognitive computing, robots, and HRI to generate a deeper understanding and to provide a better contribution from robots to society; - Engages with the potential repercussions of cognitive computing and HRI in the real world. - Introduces several new contributions to the representation and management of humans in an autonomous robotic system - Explores cognitive computing, robots and HRI, presenting a more in-depth understanding to make robots better for society - Gives a challenging approach to those several repercussions of cognitive computing and HRI in the actual global scenario

This book aims to explore and discuss theories and technologies for the development of socially competent and culture-aware embodied conversational agents for elderly care. To tackle the challenges in ageing societies, this book was written by experts who have a background in assistive technologies for elderly care, culture-aware computing, multimodal dialogue, social robotics and synthetic agents. Chapter 1 presents a vision of an intelligent agent to illustrate the current challenges for the design and development of adaptive systems. Chapter 2 examines how notions of trust and empathy may be applied to human–robot interaction and how it can be used to create the next generation of emphatic agents, which address some of the pressing issues in multicultural ageing societies. Chapter 3 discusses multimodal machine learning as an approach to enable more effective and robust modelling technologies and to develop socially competent and culture-aware embodied conversational agents for elderly care. Chapter 4 explores the challenges associated with real-world field tests and deployments. Chapter 5 gives a short introduction to socio-cognitive language processing that describes the idea of coping with everyday language, irony, sarcasm, humor, paralinguistic information such as the physical and mental state and traits of the dialogue partner, and social aspects. This book grew out of the Shonan Meeting seminar entitled “Multimodal Agents for Ageing and Multicultural Societies” held in 2018 in Japan. Researchers and practitioners will be helped to understand the emerging field and the identification of promising approaches from a variety of disciplines such as human–computer interaction, artificial intelligence, modelling, and learning.

In the last decades robots are expected to be of increasing intelligence to deal with a large range of tasks. Especially, robots are supposed to be able to learn manipulation skills from humans. To this end, a number of learning algorithms and techniques have been developed and successfully implemented for various robotic tasks. Among these methods, learning from demonstrations (LfD) enables robots to effectively and efficiently acquire skills by learning from human demonstrators, such that a robot can be quickly programmed to perform a new task.This book introduces recent results on the development of advanced LfD-based learning and control approaches to improve the robot dexterous manipulation. First, there's an introduction to the simulation tools and robot platforms used in the authors'research. In order to enable a robot learning of human-like adaptive skills, the book explains how to transfer a human user's arm variable stiffness to the robot, based on the online estimation from the muscle electromyography (EMG). Next, the motion and impedance profiles can be both modelled by dynamical movement primitives such that both of them can be planned and generalized for new tasks. Furthermore, the book introduces how to learn the correlation between signals collected from demonstration, i.e., motion trajectory, stiffness profile estimated from EMG and interaction force, using statistical models such as hidden semi-Markov model and Gaussian Mixture Regression. Several widely used human-robot interaction interfaces (such as motion capture-based teleoperation) are presented, which allow a human user to interact with a robot and transfer movements to it in both simulation and real-word environments. Finally, improved performance of robot manipulation resulted from neural network enhanced control strategies is presented. A large number of examples of simulation and experiments of daily life tasks are included in this book to facilitate better understanding of the readers.

Sexroboter sind ein Thema, das die Medien mit Vorliebe behandeln und die Gesellschaft spaltet. Es gibt einige Modelle wie Emma oder Harmony. Viel verbreiteter sind allerdings einfache Liebespuppen mit überzeugender Haut und auswechselbaren Körperöffnungen. Sie finden sich in zahlreichen Bordellen und können problemlos bei Amazon und Co. bestellt werden. Zwischen Liebespuppen und Sexrobotern sind die Grenzen fließend. Sobald Liebespuppen sprechen können oder Sensoren und Aktoren haben, werden sie zu Sexrobotern. Einzelne Varianten weisen mimische Fähigkeiten auf und können den Kopf bewegen. Das Buch erklärt Grundbegriffe, geht auf technische Details ein und diskutiert psychologische, soziologische und philosophische Erkenntnisse und Herausforderungen. Es beleuchtet die Praxis der Sexarbeit und liefert Stellungnahmen von Herstellern und Benutzern.

The new frontiers of robotics research foresee future scenarios where artificial agents will leave the laboratory to progressively take part in the activities of our daily life. This will require robots to have very sophisticated perceptual and action skills in many intelligence-demanding applications, with particular reference to the ability to seamlessly interact with humans. It will be crucial for the next generation of robots to understand their human partners and at the same time to be intuitively understood by them. In this context, a deep understanding of human motion is essential for robotics applications, where the ability to detect, represent and recognize human dynamics and the capability for generating appropriate movements in response sets the scene for higher-level tasks. This book provides a comprehensive overview of this challenging research field, closing the loop between perception and action, and between human-studies and robotics. The bookis organized in three main parts. The first part focuses on human motion perception, with contributions analyzing the neural substrates of human action understanding, how perception is influenced by motor control, and how it develops over time and is exploited in social contexts. The second part considers motion perception from the computational perspective, providing perspectives on cutting-edge solutions available from the Computer Vision and Machine Learning research fields, addressing higher-level perceptual tasks. Finally, the third part takes into account the implications for robotics, with chapters on how motor control is achieved in the latest generation of artificial agents and how such technologies have been exploited to favor human-robot interaction. This book considers the complete human-robot cycle, from an examination of how humans perceive motion and act in the world, to models for motion perception and control in artificial agents. In this respect, the book will provide insights into the perception and action loop in humans and machines, joining together aspects that are often addressed in independent investigations. As a consequence, this book positions itself in a field at the intersection of such different disciplines as Robotics, Neuroscience, Cognitive Science, Psychology, Computer Vision, and Machine Learning. By bridging these different research domains, the book offers a common reference point for researchers interested in human motion for different applications and from different standpoints, spanning Neuroscience, Human Motor Control, Robotics, Human-Robot Interaction, Computer Vision and Machine Learning.Chapter'The Importance of the Affective Component of Movement in Action Understanding'of this book is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com.

This book offers the first comprehensive yet critical overview of methods used to evaluate interaction between humans and social robots. It reviews commonly used evaluation methods, and shows that they are not always suitable for this purpose. Using representative case studies, the book identifies good and bad practices for evaluating human-robot interactions and proposes new standardized processes as well as recommendations, carefully developed on the basis of intensive discussions between specialists in various HRI-related disciplines, e.g. psychology, ethology, ergonomics, sociology, ethnography, robotics, and computer science. The book is the result of a close, long-standing collaboration between the editors and the invited contributors, including, but not limited to, their inspiring discussions at the workshop on Evaluation Methods Standardization for Human-Robot Interaction (EMSHRI), which have been organized yearly since 2015. By highlighting and weighing good and bad practices in evaluation design for HRI, the book will stimulate the scientific community to search for better solutions, take advantages of interdisciplinary collaborations, and encourage the development of new standards to accommodate the growing presence of robots in the day-to-day and social lives of human beings.

This book offers a clear, yet comprehensive overview of the role of robots in our society. It especially focuses on the interaction between humans and robots, and on the social and political aspects of the integration of robots with humans, in their everyday life, both in the private and working sphere alike. Based on the lessons held by the author at “Scuola di Politiche” (transl. School of Political Sciences), this self-contained book mainly addresses an educated, though not-specialist, audience.

This volume brings together academics from evolutionary biology, literary theory, robotics, digital culture, anthropology, sociology, and environmental studies to consider the impact of robotics and AI on society. By bringing these perspectives together in one book, readers gain a sense of the complex scientific, social, and ideological contexts within which AI and robotics research is unfolding, as well as the illusory suppositions and distorted claims being mobilized by the industry in the name of bettering humanity's future. Discussions about AI and robotics have been shaped by computer science and engineering, steered by corporate and military interests, forged by transhumanist philosophy and libertarian politics, animated by fiction, and hyped by the media. From fiction passing as science to the illusion of AI autonomy to the business of ethics to the automation of war, this collection recognizes the inevitable entanglement of humanity and technology, while exposing theproblematic assumptions and myths driving the field in order to better assess its risks and potential.

Award-winning journalist David Ewing Duncan considers 24 visions of possible human-robot futures—Incredible scenarios from Teddy Bots to Warrior Bots, and Politician Bots to Sex Bots—Grounded in real technologies and possibilities and inspired by our imagination. What robot and AI systems are being built and imagined right now? What do they say about us, their creators? Will they usher in a fantastic new future, or destroy us? What do some of our greatest thinkers, from physicist Brian Greene and futurist Kevin Kelly to inventor Dean Kamen, geneticist George Church, and filmmaker Tiffany Shlain, anticipate about our human-robot future? For even as robots and A.I. intrigue us and make us anxious about the future, our fascination with robots has always been about more than the potential of the technology–it's also about what robots tell us about being human.

This is the first volume in the Cognitive Computation Trends book series, summarising our understanding on the neural correlate of memory, perception-representation, action, language, emotion and consciousness and their mutual interactions. Integrating research in the field of the Neuroscience, Robotics and Virtual Reality, this book is an original and attainable resource that has not been developed in any other writing. In 5 chapters, the author considers that representations are based on allegorical traces and are consciously and/or unconsciously embrained, and that the creation of robots is the expression of the mind. Whole-body virtual motion is thought of as the archetypal expression of virtual reality. Therefore, visual reality is analysed in a context of visuo-vestibular and somesthetic conflict while mixed and augmented reality are scrutinised in a context of visuo-vestibular and somesthetic interaction. This monograph is an indispensablehandbook for students and investigators engaged in history of science, philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, engineering and those interested in there interconnections. The ambition of the book is to give students and investigators ideas on which they can build their future research in this new blooming area.

The idea of humans falling in love with artificial beings is not a modern conception. Our relationship with artificial partners has come a long way since Pygmalion and his ivory lover. In recent years, there has been a strong upsurge of interest and discussions in the various aspects of intimate relationships between humans and artificial partners. This interest is evidenced by the increase in media coverage, TV documentaries and films on this topic, as well as the active research efforts within the academic community. This book provides a comprehensive collection and overview of the latest development in the field of intimate relationships between humans and artificial partners, in particular robots and virtual agents. It includes relevant research work undertaken by the authors, the latest advancements in technology and commercial products, and future predictions and insights from leading experts in the area. This book contains an in-depth discussion of the engineering, philosophical, psychological, ethical, and sociological implications of relationships with artificial companions. It also gives a glimpse of some future directions of artificial intelligence, human-computer love and sexual interaction, robotics engineering etc. It is a great resource for researchers and professionals working in these areas. The narrative style of the book also makes it an enjoyable and educational read for everyone.

'Illuminating, witty and written with a wide open mind'- Sunday TimesAn exploration of humans, sexuality, interaction and technology through the lens of the sex robot.The idea of the seductive sex robot is the stuff of myth, legend and science fiction. From the myth of Laodamia in Ancient Greece to twenty-first century TV shows such as Westworld, robots in human form have captured our imagination, our hopes and our fears. But beyond the fantasies there are real and fundamental questions about our relationship with technology as it moves into the realm of robotics.Turned On explores how the emerging and future development of sexual companion robots might affect us and the society in which we live. It explores the social changes arising from emerging technologies, and our relationships with the machines that someday may care for us and about us. Sex robots are here, and here to stay, and more are coming. Computer scientist and sex-robot expert Kate Devlin is our guide as we seek to understand how this technology is developing. From robots in Greek myth and the fantastical automata of the Middle Ages through to the sentient machines of the future that embody the prominent AI debate, she explores the'modern'robot versus the robot servants we were promised by twentieth century sci-fi, and delves into the psychological effects of the technology, and issues raised around gender politics, diversity, surveillance and violence. This book answers all the questions you've ever had about sex robots, as well as all the ones you haven't yet thought of.

This self-contained book, written by active researchers, presents up-to-date information on smart maintenance strategies for human–robot interaction (HRI) and the associated applications of novel search algorithms in a single volume, eliminating the need to consult scattered resources. Unlike other books, it addresses maintaining a smart HRI from three dimensions, namely, hardware, cyberware, and hybrid-asset management, covering problems encountered in each through a wide variety of representative examples and elaborated illustrations. Further, the diverse mathematical models and intelligent systems constructions make the book highly practical. It enables readers interested in maintenance, robotics, and intelligent systems but perplexed by myriads of interrelated issues to grasp basic methodologies. At the same time, the referenced literature can be used as a roadmap for conducting deeper researches.

Human Modelling for Bio-inspired Robotics: Mechanical Engineering in Assistive Technologies presents the most cutting-edge research outcomes in the area of mechanical and control aspects of human functions for macro-scale (human size) applications. Intended to provide researchers both in academia and industry with key content on which to base their developments, this book is organized and written by senior experts in their fields. Human Modeling for Bio-Inspired Robotics: Mechanical Engineering in Assistive Technologies offers a system-level investigation into human mechanisms that inspire the development of assistive technologies and humanoid robotics, including topics in modelling of anatomical, musculoskeletal, neural and cognitive systems, as well as motor skills, adaptation and integration. Each chapter is written by a subject expert and discusses its background, research challenges, key outcomes, application, and future trends. This book will be especially useful for academic and industry researchers in this exciting field, as well as graduate-level students to bring them up to speed with the latest technology in mechanical design and control aspects of the area. Previous knowledge of the fundamentals of kinematics, dynamics, control, and signal processing is assumed. - Presents the most recent research outcomes in the area of mechanical and control aspects of human functions for macro-scale (human size) applications - Covers background information and fundamental concepts of human modelling - Includes modelling of anatomical, musculoskeletal, neural and cognitive systems, as well as motor skills, adaptation, integration, and safety issues - Assumes previous knowledge of the fundamentals of kinematics, dynamics, control, and signal processing

This book provides an overview of recent research developments in the automation and control of robotic systems that collaborate with humans. A measure of human collaboration being necessary for the optimal operation of any robotic system, the contributors exploit a broad selection of such systems to demonstrate the importance of the subject, particularly where the environment is prone to uncertainty or complexity. They show how such human strengths as high-level decision-making, flexibility, and dexterity can be combined with robotic precision, and ability to perform task repetitively or in a dangerous environment.The book focuses on quantitative methods and control design for guaranteed robot performance and balanced human experience from both physical human-robot interaction and social human-robot interaction. Its contributions develop and expand upon material presented at various international conferences. They are organized into three parts covering:one-human–one-robot collaboration;one-human–multiple-robot collaboration; andhuman–swarm collaboration.Individual topic areas include resource optimization (human and robotic), safety in collaboration, human trust in robot and decision-making when collaborating with robots, abstraction of swarm systems to make them suitable for human control, modeling and control of internal force interactions for collaborative manipulation, and the sharing of control between human and automated systems, etc. Control and decision-making algorithms feature prominently in the text, importantly within the context of human factors and the constraints they impose. Applications such as assistive technology, driverless vehicles, cooperative mobile robots, manufacturing robots and swarm robots are considered. Illustrative figures and tables are provided throughout the book.Researchers and students working in controls, and the interaction of humans and robots will learn new methods for human–robot collaboration from this book and will find the cutting edge of the subject described in depth.

Perspectives from philosophy, psychology religious studies, economics, and law on the possible future of robot-human sexual relationships.Sexbots are coming. Given the pace of technological advances, it is inevitable that realistic robots specifically designed for people's sexual gratification will be developed in the not-too-distant future. Despite popular culture's fascination with the topic, and the emergence of the much-publicized Campaign Against Sex Robots, there has been little academic research on the social, philosophical, moral, and legal implications of robot sex. This book fills the gap, offering perspectives from philosophy, psychology, religious studies, economics, and law on the possible future of robot-human sexual relationships. Contributors discuss what a sex robot is, if they exist, why we should take the issue seriously, and what it means to “have sex” with a robot. They make the case for developing sex robots, arguing for their beneficial nature, and the case against it, on religious and moral grounds; they consider the subject from the robot's perspective, addressing such issues as consent and agency; and they ask whether it is possible for a human to form a mutually satisfying, loving relationship with a robot. Finally, they speculate about the future of human-robot sexual interaction, considering the social acceptability of sex robots and the possible effect on society.Contributors Marina Adshade, Thomas Arnold, Julie Carpenter, John Danaher, Brian Earp, Lily Eva Frank, Joshua Goldstein, Michael Hauskeller, Noreen Herzfeld, Neil McArthur, Mark Migotti, Sven Nyholm, Ezio di Nucci, Steve Petersen, Anders Sandberg, Matthias Scheutz, Litska Strikwerda, Nicole Wyatt

This volume is a collection of research studies on the modeling of emotions in complex autonomous systems. Several experts in the field are reporting their efforts and reviewing the literature in order to shed lights on how the processes of coding and decoding emotional states took place in humans, which are the physiological, physical, and psychological variables involved, invent new mathematical models and algorithms to describe them, and motivate these investigations in the light of observable societal changes and needs, such as the aging population and the cost of health care services. The consequences are the implementation of emotionally and socially believable machines, acting as helpers into domestic spheres, where emotions drive behaviors and actions. The contents of the book are highly multidisciplinary since the modeling of emotions in robotic socially believable systems requires a holistic perspective on topics coming from different research domains such as computer science, engineering, sociology, psychology, linguistic, and information communication. The book is of interest both to experts and students since last research works on a so complex multidisciplinary topic are described in a neat and didactical scientific language.

This volume presents a collection of research studies on sophisticated and functional computational instruments able to recognize, process, and store relevant situated interactional signals, as well as, interact with people, displaying reactions (under conditions of limited time) that show abilities of appropriately sensing and understanding environmental changes, producing suitable, autonomous, and adaptable responses to various social situations. These social robotic autonomous systems will improve the quality of life of their end-users while assisting them on several needs, ranging from educational settings, health care assistance, communicative disorders, and any disorder impairing either their physical, cognitive, or social functional activities. The multidisciplinary themes presented in the volume will be interesting for experts and students coming from different research fields and with different knowledge and backgrounds. The research reported is particularly relevant for academic centers, and Research & Development Institutions.

Cognitive Neuroscience Robotics is the first introductory book on this new interdisciplinary area. This book consists of two volumes, the first of which, Synthetic Approaches to Human Understanding, advances human understanding from a robotics or engineering point of view. The second, Analytic Approaches to Human Understanding, addresses related subjects in cognitive science and neuroscience. These two volumes are intended to complement each other in order to more comprehensively investigate human cognitive functions, to develop human-friendly information and robot technology (IRT) systems, and to understand what kind of beings we humans are. Volume A describes how human cognitive functions can be replicated in artificial systems such as robots, and investigates how artificial systems could acquire intelligent behaviors through interaction with others and their environment.

Cognitive Neuroscience Robotics is the first introductory book on this new interdisciplinary area. This book consists of two volumes, the first of which, Synthetic Approaches to Human Understanding, advances human understanding from a robotics or engineering point of view. The second, Analytic Approaches to Human Understanding, addresses related subjects in cognitive science and neuroscience. These two volumes are intended to complement each other in order to more comprehensively investigate human cognitive functions, to develop human-friendly information and robot technology (IRT) systems, and to understand what kind of beings we humans are. Volume B describes to what extent cognitive science and neuroscience have revealed the underlying mechanism of human cognition, and investigates how development of neural engineering and advances in other disciplines could lead to deep understanding of human cognition.

This book presents state-of-the-art computational attention models that have been successfully tested in diverse application areas and can build the foundation for artificial systems to efficiently explore, analyze, and understand natural scenes. It gives a comprehensive overview of the most recent computational attention models for processing visual and acoustic input. It covers the biological background of visual and auditory attention, as well as bottom-up and top-down attentional mechanisms and discusses various applications. In the first part new approaches for bottom-up visual and acoustic saliency models are presented and applied to the task of audio-visual scene exploration of a robot. In the second part the influence of top-down cues for attention modeling is investigated.

This is the first book to describe how Autonomous Virtual Humans and Social Robots can interact with real people, be aware of the environment around them, and react to various situations. Researchers from around the world present the main techniques for tracking and analysing humans and their behaviour and contemplate the potential for these virtual humans and robots to replace or stand in for their human counterparts, tackling areas such as awareness and reactions to real world stimuli and using the same modalities as humans do: verbal and body gestures, facial expressions and gaze to aid seamless human-computer interaction (HCI).The research presented in this volume is split into three sections: ·User Understanding through Multisensory Perception: deals with the analysis and recognition of a given situation or stimuli, addressing issues of facial recognition, body gestures and sound localization. ·Facial and Body Modelling Animation: presents the methods used in modelling and animating faces and bodies to generate realistic motion.·Modelling Human Behaviours: presents the behavioural aspects of virtual humans and social robots when interacting and reacting to real humans and each other. Context Aware Human-Robot and Human-Agent Interaction would be of great use to students, academics and industry specialists in areas like Robotics, HCI, and Computer Graphics.

It is predicted that robots will surpass human intelligence within the next fifty years.The ever increasing speed of advances in technology and neuroscience, coupled with the creation of super computers and enhanced body parts and artificial limbs, is paving the way for a merger of both human and machine.Devices which were once worn on the body are now being implanted into the body, and as a result, a class of true cyborgs, who are displaying a range of skills beyond those of normal humans-beings, are being created. There are cyborgs which can see colour by hearing sound, others have the ability to detect magnetic fields, some are equipped with telephoto lenses to aid their vision or implanted computers to monitor their heart, and some use thought to communicate with a computer or to manipulate a robotic arm. This is not science-fiction, these are developments that are really happening now, and will continue to develop in the future. However, a range of legal and policy questions has arisen alongside this rise of artificial intelligence.Cyber-Humans provides a deep and unique perspective on the technological future of humanity, and describes how law and policy will be particularly relevant in creating a fair and equal society and protecting the liberties of different life forms which will emerge in the 21st century.Dr Woodrow (Woody) Barfield previously headed up the Sensory Engineering Laboratory, holding the position of Industrial and Systems Engineering Professor at the University of Washington. His research revolves around the design and use of wearable computers and augmented reality systems and holds both JD and LLM degrees in intellectual property law and policy. He has published over 350 articles and major presentations in the areas of computer science, engineering and law. He currently lives in Chapel Hill, NC, USA.

Learning from Demonstration (LfD) explores techniques for learning a task policy from examples provided by a human teacher. The field of LfD has grown into an extensive body of literature over the past 30 years, with a wide variety of approaches for encoding human demonstrations and modeling skills and tasks. Additionally, we have recently seen a focus on gathering data from non-expert human teachers (i.e., domain experts but not robotics experts). In this book, we provide an introduction to the field with a focus on the unique technical challenges associated with designing robots that learn from naive human teachers. We begin, in the introduction, with a unification of the various terminology seen in the literature as well as an outline of the design choices one has in designing an LfD system. Chapter 2 gives a brief survey of the psychology literature that provides insights from human social learning that are relevant to designing robotic social learners. Chapter 3 walks through an LfD interaction, surveying the design choices one makes and state of the art approaches in prior work. First, is the choice of input, how the human teacher interacts with the robot to provide demonstrations. Next, is the choice of modeling technique. Currently, there is a dichotomy in the field between approaches that model low-level motor skills and those that model high-level tasks composed of primitive actions. We devote a chapter to each of these. Chapter 7 is devoted to interactive and active learning approaches that allow the robot to refine an existing task model. And finally, Chapter 8 provides best practices for evaluation of LfD systems, with a focus on how to approach experiments with human subjects in this domain.

This book dives into the heart of how to design distributed control architectures for heterogeneous teams of humans, robots, and automated systems, enabling them to achieve greater cooperation and autonomy through the use of network technologies. It covers a wide range of practical, proven strategies for pervasive communication and collaborative problem solving abilities of humans, robots, and their environments. Each chapter consists of a presentation of findings from the latest research in networked robots and ambient intelligence. The chapters also detail how to allow robots to achieve universal access to the extended functionality of the environment that brings various cost effective services to those in need. Readers can envision a realistic view of what can be expected from a networked human robot cooperative environment in the next decade. The multidisciplinary content of this book is a handy reference for anyone interested in the future direction of ubiquitous computing and networked robots.

Robot manipulation is a great challenge; it encompasses versatility -adaptation to different situations-, autonomy -independent robot operation-, and dependability -for success under modeling or sensing errors. A complete manipulation task involves, first, a suitable grasp or contact configuration, and the subsequent motion required by the task. This monograph presents a unified framework by introducing task-related aspects into the knowledge-based grasp concept, leading to task-oriented grasps. Similarly, grasp-related issues are also considered during the execution of a task, leading to grasp-oriented tasks which is called framework for physical interaction (FPI). The book presents the theoretical framework for the versatile specification of physical interaction tasks, as well as the problem of autonomous planning of these tasks. A further focus is on sensor-based dependable execution combining three different types of sensors: force, vision and tactile. The FPI approach allows to perform a wide range of robot manipulation tasks. All contributions are validated with several experiments using different real robots placed on household environments; for instance, a high-DoF humanoid robot can successfully operate unmodeled mechanisms with widely varying structure in a general way with natural motions. This research was recipient of the European Georges Giralt Award and the Robotdalen Scientific Award Honorary Mention.

These days, construction companies are beginning to be concerned about a potential labor shortage by demographic changes and an aging construction work force. Also, an improvement in construction safety could not only reduce accidents but also decrease the cost of the construction, and is therefore one of the imperative goals of the construction industry. These challenges correspond to the potential for Automation and Robotics in Construction as one of solutions. Almost half of construction work is said to be material handling and materials used for construction are heavy and bulky for humans. To date, various types of robots have been developed for glazed panel construction. Through the case studies on construction, to which the robots were applied, however, we identified difficulties to be overcome. In this study, a human-robot cooperative system is deduced as one approach to surmount these difficulties; then, considerations on interactions among the operator, robot and environment are applied to design of the system controller. The human-robot cooperative system can cope with various and construction environments through real-time interaction with a human, robot and construction environment simultaneously. The physical power of a robot system helps a human to handle heavy construction materials with a relatively scaled-down load. Also, a human can feel and respond to the force reflected from robot end effecter acting with working environment. Through the experiments and mock-up tests with a prototype robot, we observe the characteristics of the power assist and the force reflection, the merits of the human-robot cooperation system. To apply human-robot cooperative system at real construction sites, Glazed Ceiling Panel Construction Robot is developed for the first time. This robot is distinguished from other glazed panel construction robots because of the methods of lifting the panel to high installation positions and installing the fragile and bulkpanel with robot force control. After applying to real construction sites, evaluation on the productivity of the developed robot was done by comparing and analyzing with the existing installation methods.