1,721,034 research outputs found
Integrated robot planning, path following, and obstacle avoidance in two and three dimensions: Wheeled robots, underwater vehicles, and multicopters
No full textWe propose an innovative, integrated solution to path planning, path following, and obstacle avoidance that is suitable both for 2D and 3D navigation. The proposed method takes as input a generic curve connecting a start and a goal position, and is able to find a corresponding path from start to goal in a maze-like environment even in the absence of global information, it guarantees convergence to the path with kinematic control, and finally avoids locally sensed obstacles without becoming trapped in deadlocks. This is achieved by computing a closed-form expression in which the control variables are a continuous function of the input curve, the robot’s state, and the distance of all the locally sensed obstacles. Specifically, we introduce a novel formalism for describing the path in two and three dimensions, as well as a computationally efficient method for path deformation (based only on local sensor readings) that is able to find a path to the goal even when such path cannot be produced through continuous deformations of the original. The article provides formal proofs of all the properties above, as well as simulated results in a simulated environment with a wheeled robot, an underwater vehicle, and a multicopter
A cloud-based scene recognition framework for in-home assistive robots
No full textThe rapidly increasing number of elderly people has led to the development of in-home assistive robots for assisting and monitoring elderly people in their daily life. To these ends, indoor scene and human activity recognition is fundamental. However, image processing is an expensive process, in computational, energy, storage and pricing terms, which can be problematic for consumer robots. For this reason, we propose the use of computer vision cloud services and a Naive Bayes model to perform indoor scene and human daily activity recognition. We implement the developed method on the telepresence robot Double to make it autonomously find and approach the person in the environment as well as detect the performed activity
A Feasibility Study of Culture-Aware Cloud Services for Conversational Robots
No full textCultural competence - i.e., the capability to adapt verbal and non-verbal interaction to the user's cultural background - may be a key element for social robots to increase the user experience. However, designing and implementing culturally competent social robots is a complex task, given that advanced conversational skills are required. In this context, Cloud services may be useful for helping robots in generating appropriate interaction patterns in a culture-aware manner. In this letter, we present the design and the implementation of the CARESSES Cloud, a set of robotic services aimed at endowing robots with cultural competence in verbal interaction. A preliminary evaluation of the Cloud services as a general dialoguing system for culture-aware social robots has been performed, analyzing the feasibility of the architecture in terms of communication and data processing delays
IFNs, ISGylation and cancer: Cui prodest?
No full textIFNs are cytokines that segregate viral infections, modulate the immune responses and influence tumor
cells survival. These options are under the control of ISGs (Interferon Stimulated Genes) which expression
is propelled by IFNs. To the ISGs family belong all the components of the molecular machinery that
modifies proteins by the addition of the ubiquitin-like protein ISG15, in a process known as ISGylation.
Despite alterations in the components of this machinery are frequently observed in cancer, the
contribution of ISG15 and of ISGylation to tumor growth and resistance to chemotherapy is unclear and
debated. With the aim of elucidating this point, in this review we have discussed about recent data
pointing to a dysregulation of the IFN signaling and the ISGylation system in cancer
Robot-Induced Group Conversation Dynamics: A Model to Balance Participation and Unify Communities
No full textThe purpose of this research is to study the impact of robot participation in group conversations and assess the effectiveness of different addressing policies. The study involved a total of 300 participants, who were divided into groups of four and engaged in a dialogue with a humanoid robot. The robot acted as a moderator, using information obtained during the conversation to determine which speaker to address. The study found that the policy used by the robot significantly impacted the conversation dynamics. Specifically, the robot provided more balanced attention to each participant and reduced the number of subgroups
Proteolytic processing of the adherens junctions components beta-catenin and gamma-catenin/plakoglobin during apoptosis
No full textCloud Services for Social Robots and Artificial Agents
No full textThis work presents the design and the implementation of CAIR: a cloud system for knowledge-based interaction devised for Social Robots and other conversational agents. The system is structured in a way that it can be easily expanded by adding new services that improve the capabilities of the clients connected to the Cloud. Another key feature of the system is that it has been designed to make the development of its clients straightforward: in this way, multiple devices (e.g., robots, computers, smartphones, etc.) can be easily endowed with the capability of autonomously interacting with the user, understanding when to perform specific actions, and exploiting all the information provided by services on the Cloud
A GAN-based Approach for Generating Culture-Aware Co-Speech Gestures
No full textEmbedding social robots with the capability of accompanying their sentences with natural gestures may be the key to increasing their acceptability and their usage in real contexts. However, it could be argued that the definition of natural communicative gestures is not trivial, since it strictly depends on the culture of the person interacting with the robot. The proposed work investigates the usage of Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) for generating culture-dependent communicative gestures based on speech audio features. To this aim, a custom dataset, only composed of persons belonging to the same culture, has been created, to extract all keypoints and audio features needed to train the network. Then, a generative model, also consisting of a voice conversion module, has been implemented and tested with the humanoid robot Pepper. Preliminary results, obtained through objective measurements and subjective evaluation, show that the proposed approach may be promising for generating culture-dependent communicative gestures for social robots
Ethical concerns in rescue robotics: a scoping review
No full textRescue operations taking place in disaster settings can be fraught with ethical challenges. Further ethical challenges will likely be introduced by the use of robots, which are expected to soon become commonplace in search and rescue missions and disaster recovery efforts. To help focus timely reflection on the ethical considerations associated with the deployment of rescue robots, we have conducted a scoping review exploring the relevant academic literature following a widely recognized scoping review framework. Of the 429 papers identified by the first screening, six fulfilled the selection criteria of our literature review. Quantitative data synthesis showed that a subset of the papers includes a qualitative experimental exploration of the ethical issues at hand, with workshops involving both experts and potential users. Most use simulations or scenarios to anticipate the ethical implications and other consequences of using robots in search and rescue missions. Qualitative text analysis identified seven core ethically relevant themes: fairness and discrimination; false or excessive expectations; labor replacement; privacy; responsibility; safety; trust. Our results suggest that the literature on ethics in rescue robotics is scant and disparate, but the papers identified uniformly endorsed a proactive approach to handling the ethical concerns associated with the use of robots in disaster scenarios
Personality- and Memory-Based Software Framework for Human-Robot Interaction
No full textThe synergic orchestration of the cognitive and psychological dimensions characterizes human intelligence. Accordingly, carefully designing this mechanism in artificial intelligence can be a successful strategy to increase human likeness in a robot, enhancing mutual understanding and building a more natural and intuitive interaction. For this purpose, the main contribution of this work is a psychological and cognitive architecture tailored for HRI based on the interplay between robotic personality and memory-based cognitive processes. Indeed, the artificial personality manifests itself not only in various aspects of the behavior but also within the action selection process, which is closely intertwined with personality-dependent hedonic experiences linked to memories. Within this paper, we propose a task- and platform-independent framework, evaluated in a multiparty collaborative scenario. Obtained results show that a robot connected to our proposed framework is perceived as a cognitive agent capable of manifesting perceivable and distinguishable personality traits
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