INSIGHTS / News

Over 100 delegates from around the world, including researchers from MIT, Imperial College and the University of Tokyo, will report on the latest progress in social robotics and will particularly focus on ‘companionship’.

 

Over 55 papers will be presented at the conference, and researchers will explore subjects such as:

 

• Interaction and collaboration among robots, humans, and environments;

 

• Robots to assist the elderly and persons with disabilities;

 

• Socially assistive robots to improve quality of life;

 

• Personal robots for the home;

 

• Social acceptance and impact in the society;

 

• Robot ethics in human society;

 

• Safety in robots working in human spaces;

 

• Human augmentation, rehabilitation, and medical robots;

 

• Robot applications in education, entertainment, and gaming.

 

Dr Guido Herrmann, Reader in Control and Dynamics in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bristol and chair of the conference, said: “The Bristol Robotics Laboratory is a world leader in modern advanced robotics.

 

“Tremendous progress has been made in the development of robots capable of interacting with humans in the last decade, and this conference will bring together world-class robotics experts whose aim is to bring social robots a step closer into our world.”

 

The winners of the Robot Design competition and NAO Programming competition will be announced during the conference.

 

The Robot Design competition, jointly run by the Bristol Robotics Laboratory and the Pervasive Media Studio, centres on the theme of ‘companionship’ in social robotics. The judges will be looking for entries for creating future robots that people will want to spend time with in a social sense, and the benefits that such robots may give to society or individuals. Ten entries have been selected to present their submission at the conference during an interactive session.  Following their presentation, conference attendees will vote for the top three entries, all of whom will receive certificates and prizes provided IET Robotics & MechatronIcs TPN.  The winner will receive £400, the runner-up £200 and there is a third prize of £100.

 

The NAO Programming competition has called for people to design a program for Aldebaran Robotics NAO, a 58cm tall humanoid robot platform that can entertain a human companion.  

 

Two submissions have been selected to be presented at the conference during an interactive session.  The selected entrants will also be invited to download their software onto a real NAO during the conference, and conference attendees will have an opportunity to try out the behaviours designed by the competitors and judge how entertaining they are. Conference attendees will then vote for the most entertaining entry. The best entry selected by the judging panel, and the entry voted as the most entertaining by attendees, will both receive certificates and a Boe Bot Robot Kit from Active Robotics.