关键词： Psychic surgery   Surgical robots   Laparoscopic surgery   Endoscopic surgery   Nephrectomy  

关键词： assistive robotics   3D haptic rendering   telepresence   individuals with visual impairments   telerobotics  

摘要： Although many assistive devices have been developed and utilized to aid in daily living, the most general assistive means for individuals with visual impairments are the walking cane and guide dogs. These assistive means are effective in assisting the user in navigating within an environment;however, the navigation space is limited to the proximal environment of the user. Thus, in this paper, we discuss a method to increase the range of accessibility to a remote environment through robotic embodiment that enables teleoperation and teleperception through multi-modal feedback. In order to transform remote spatial information into a non-visual modality, we present a framework for utilizing an RGB-D-based depth camera, a mobile robot, and a haptic interface for 3D haptic rendering to accomplish the goal of haptic exploration of a remote environment. Experiments with three different control methods for robot interaction are designed for users with and without visual impairments. Several hypothesis are built to study the correlation between control/feedback modality and performance in telerobotic operations. Results show that users performed best when combining semi-autonomous navigation with 3D haptic exploration and also rated their experience with our system as fairly good. Copyright (c) 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

摘要： Building general purpose autonomous robots that suit a wide range of user-specified applications, requires a leap from today's task-specific machines to more flexible and general ones. To achieve this goal, one should move from traditional prepro- grammed robots to learning robots that easily can acquire new skills. Learning from Demonstration (LfD) and Imitation Learning (IL), in which the robot learns by observing a human or robot tutor, are among the most popular learning tech- niques. Showing the robot how to perform a task is often more natural and intuitive than figuring out how to modify a complex control program. However, teaching robots new skills such that they can reproduce the acquired skills under any circum- stances, on the right time and in an appropriate way, require good understanding of all challenges in the field. Studies of imitation learning in humans and animals show that several cognitive abilities are engaged to learn new skills correctly. The most remarkable ones are the ability to direct attention to important aspects of demonstrations, and adapting observed actions to the agents own body. Moreover, a clear understanding of the demonstrator's intentions and an ability to generalize to new situations are essential. Once learning is accomplished, various stimuli may trigger the cognitive system to execute new skills that have become part of the robot's repertoire. The goal of this thesis is to develop methods for learning from demonstration that mainly focus on understanding the tutor's intentions, and recognizing which elements of a demonstration need the robot's attention. An architecture containing required cognitive functions for learning and reproduction of high-level aspects of demonstrations is proposed. Several learning methods for directing the robot's attention and identifying relevant information are introduced. The architecture integrates motor actions with concepts, objects and environmental states to ensure correct reproduction

关键词： On-line evolution   Parameter control   Evolutionary robotics   Racing   On-board evolution   Heuristics  

摘要： On-line evolution of robot controllers allows robots to adapt while they perform their proper tasks. In our investigations, robots contain their own self-sufficient evolutionary algorithm (known as the encapsulated approach) where individual solutions are evaluated by means of a time sharing scheme: an individual controller is given the run of the robot for some amount of time and fitness corresponds to the robot's task performance during that period. In this paper, we propose and provide a detailed analysis of two on-the-fly control schemes to set the evaluation time in highly dynamic scenarios with completely different tasks. One scheme, called the roulette-wheel selection scheme, stochastically selects evaluation time from promising intervals similar to multi-armed bandit schemes. The other scheme, named Heuristic-Rule (H-Rule), tweaks the evaluation time using specific heuristics. Our experiments show that H-Rule gives stable performance in different scenarios and can serve as a viable alternative to pre-selected optimal evaluation time.

关键词： Service Oriented Computing (SOC)   Multi-robot systems   Data mapping   Robotics frameworks   Microsoft robotics developer studio  

摘要： This document summarizes the goals achieved in the development of a data mapping application, for a multi-robot system, implemented as a service with the guidelines found in the Service Oriented Computing paradigm (SOC). The obtained service generates both local and global maps in the reconstruction of a virtual scenario: the local maps represent the surrounding area around each one of the mobile robots, and the global one the totality of the scenario where the robots move. The information of the global map is continuously updated by merging the data coming from the local maps by using a novel approach: each one of the maps manages a confidence level value that defines which of the data coming from the maps is worthy of being updated into the global one. This technique is not present in related work. The Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio framework was chosen for its implementation because of the advantages that this tool offers in the management of concurrent and distributed processes, typically found in both a robotics platform and in a multi-robot system. (C) 2014 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.

关键词： Affective robotics   Body features of emotion   Corpus materials   Culture prototypes   Emotion event scenario   GRID  

摘要： If robots are to successfully interact with humans, they need to measure, quantify and respond to the emotions we produce. Similar to humans, the perceptual cue inputs to any modelling that allows this will be based on behavioural expression and body activity features that are prototypical of each emotion. However, the likely employment of such robots in different cultures necessitates the tuning of the emotion feature recognition system to the specific feature profiles present in these cultures. The amount of tuning depends on the relative convergence of the cross-cultural mappings between the emotion feature profiles of the cultures where the robots will be used. The GRID instrument and the cognitive corpus linguistics methodology were used in a contrastive study analysing a selection of behavioural expression and body activity features to compare the feature profiles of joy, sadness, fear and anger within and between Polish and British English. The intra-linguistic differences that were found in the profile of emotion features suggest that weightings based on this profile can be used in robotic modelling to create emotion-sensitive socially interacting robots. Our cross-cultural results further indicate that this profile of features needs to be tuned in robots to make them emotionally competent in different cultures.

关键词： employment   health care sector   motivation   robotics  

摘要： Background: The economy is being lifted by the new concept of robotics, but we cannot be sure of all the possible benefits. At this early stage, it therefore becomes important to find out the possible benefits/limitations associated with robotics, so that the positives can be capitalized, established, and developed further for the employment and motivation of employees in the health care sector, for overall economic development. The negatives should also be further studied and mitigated. Methods: This study is an exploratory research, based on secondary data, such as books on topics related to robotics, websites, public websites of concerned departments for data and statistics, journals, newspapers and magazines, websites of health care providers, and different printed materials (brochures, etc). Results: The impact of robotics has both positive and negative impacts on the employment and motivation of employees in the retail sector. So far, there has been no substantial research done into robotics, especially in the health care sector. Conclusion: Replacing employees with robots is an inevitable choice for organizations in the service sector, more so in the health care sector because of the challenging and sometimes unhealthy working environments, but, at the same time, the researchers propose that it should be done in a manner that helps in improving the employment and motivation of employees in this sector. (C) 2014, Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute. Published by Elsevier. All rights reserved.

关键词： ROBOTICS & ethics   ROBOTICS   GOVERNMENT policy   PUBLIC administration ethics   AGING -- Government policy   MEDICAL policy   MEDICAL ethics   MILITARY ethics   ROBOTICS -- Law & legislation   MORAL & ethical aspects  

摘要： Some electronics experts believe that robots, like present-day computers, will be commonplace. A diverse assortment of robots, with varying purposes, capacities, forms, and sizes, is emerging with significant implications for the policy, service and regulatory responsibilities of government. This paper explores three public policy fields - aging, health care and defence - where the use of robotics is already substantial or where it is projected to grow substantially and where significant ethical issues exist or are anticipated. Applying ethical theories to the use of robotics is difficult. In the near-term, the focus should be on the ethical standards and behaviour of those designing, manufacturing, programming and operating robots. Several key topics in contemporary public sector ethics, including personal moral responsibility, privacy and accountability, are central to the emerging field of robot ethics. This suggests developing an ethics regime for robotics and examining the need for laws and regulations governing its use. Sommaire Certains experts en electronique pensent que les robots, tout comme les ordinateurs d'aujourd'hui, seront bientot chose courante. Tout un assortiment de robots aux objectifs, capacites, formes et tailles variees, est en train de voir le jour, avec des repercussions considerables sur les responsabilites du gouvernement en matiere de politiques, de services et de reglementation. Cet article examine trois domaines de politique publique - le vieillissement, les soins de sante et la defense - dans lesquels l'utilisation de la robotique est deja considerable, ou prevue de s'accroitre enormement et oU d'importantes questions d'ethique existent ou sont anticipees. L'application des theories ethiques a l'utilisation de la robotique est un defi de taille. L'attention a court terme porte sur les normes d'ethique et le comportement des personnes qui interviennent dans la conception, la fabrication, la programmation et le fonctionnement des robots.

关键词： Social assitive robotics   Cerebral palsy  

摘要： Robotics Agent Coacher for Cerebral Palsy motor Function (RAC CP Fun) is an attempt to implement socially assistive robotics, and a motor learning approach in rehabilitating movement disorders with a central origin. The concept and architecture of RAC CP Fun implements the motor learning theory and behavioral approach, i.e. principles of repetition, stages of learning, appropriate feedback, random practice, and enriched environments. Eleven children with cerebral palsy (CP) and fourteen typically developed (TD) children participated in two procedures while interacting with a robot and performing motor exercises. The interaction level and motor performance of children were measured and compared. Children with CP exhibited a higher interaction level;however, their motor performance was lower than that of TD children. RAC CP Fun was found to be feasible to interact with children of pre-school age, to augment the motivation of the children with CP, and to involve the children in motor exercises.