Related papers: SPARCS: Structuring Physically Assistive Robotics …
Robots hold significant promise to assist with providing care to an aging population and to help overcome increasing caregiver demands. Although a large body of research has explored robotic assistance for individuals with disabilities and…
This paper develops a novel framework called Providers-Clients-Robots (PCR), applicable to socially assistive robots that support research on shared understanding in human-robot interactions. Providers, Clients, and Robots share an…
While assistive robots have much potential to help older people with frailty-related needs, there are few in use. There is a gap between what is developed in laboratories and what would be viable in real-world contexts. Through a series of…
Generating safe motion plans in real-time is necessary for the wide-scale deployment of robots in unstructured and human-centric environments. These motion plans must be safe to ensure humans are not harmed and nearby objects are not…
Despite the growth of physically assistive robotics (PAR) research over the last decade, nearly half of PAR user studies do not involve participants with the target disabilities. There are several reasons for this -- recruitment challenges,…
There is a close connection between health and the quality of one's social life. Strong social bonds are essential for health and wellbeing, but often health conditions can detrimentally affect a person's ability to interact with others.…
We present an ongoing project that aims to develop a social robot to help children cope with painful and distressing medical procedures in a clinical setting. Our approach uses automated planning as a core component for action selection in…
We present RCareWorld, a human-centric simulation world for physical and social robotic caregiving designed with inputs from stakeholders, including care recipients, caregivers, occupational therapists, and roboticists. RCareWorld has…
This paper introduces the Safe Protective and Assistive Robot Kit (SPARK), a comprehensive benchmark designed to ensure safety in humanoid autonomy and teleoperation. Humanoid robots pose significant safety risks due to their physical…
Participatory Design (PD) methods are effective in understanding older adults' perspectives, concerns, and wishes and generating ideas for new intelligent aids. The aim of our study was first to map perceptions and explore the needs of…
Robots are increasingly present in human spaces, such as for conducting deliveries in hospitals, interacting with visitors at museums, and stocking items in warehouses. To ensure the seamless integration of robots into these spaces, a new…
As AI-enabled robots enter the realm of healthcare and caregiving, it is important to consider how they will address the dimensions of care and how they will interact not just with the direct receivers of assistance, but also with those who…
Uncertainties in the real world mean that is impossible for system designers to anticipate and explicitly design for all scenarios that a robot might encounter. Thus, robots designed like this are fragile and fail outside of…
The field of Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) has seen a considerable amount of progress in recent years. Thanks in part to advances in control and perception algorithms, robots have started to work in increasingly unstructured environments,…
Autonomous robots have the potential to serve as versatile caregivers that improve quality of life for millions of people worldwide. Yet, conducting research in this area presents numerous challenges, including the risks of physical…
Socially Assistive Robots (SARs) offer unique opportunities within speech language pathology (SLP) education and practice by supporting interactive interventions for children with communication disorders. This paper explores the…
Research in multi-robot and swarm systems has seen significant interest in cooperation of agents in complex and dynamic environments. To effectively adapt to unknown environments and maximize the utility of the group, robots need to…
We present our ongoing research on applying a participatory design approach to using social robots for elderly care. Our approach involves four different groups of stakeholders: the elderly, (non-professional) caregivers, medical…
Socially assistive robots are increasingly being used to support the social, cognitive, and physical well-being of those who provide care (healthcare professionals) and those in need of care (older adults). However, the effectiveness of…
Robots have the potential to be a game changer in healthcare: improving health and well-being, filling care gaps, supporting care givers, and aiding health care workers. However, before robots are able to be widely deployed, it is crucial…