Control for Human Robot Interaction

MOBOT – Intelligent Active MObility Assistance RoBOT integrating Multimodal Sensory Processing, Proactive Autonomy and Adaptive Interaction

MOBOT is an EU Framework 7 funded project aimed at developing two intelligent robotic platforms that can provide advanced mobility assistance to older or mobility impaired people. The project is coordinated by UWE’s Angelika Peer who leads a consortium of eight European partners from five countries.

Mobility disabilities are prevalent in our ageing society and impede activities important for the independent living of elderly people and their quality of life. MOBOT project is about supporting human mobility and thus enforcing fitness and vitality by developing intelligent robotic platforms designed to provide user-centred and natural support for ambulating in indoor environments. We envision the design of cognitive mobile robotic systems that can monitor and understand specific forms of human activity, in order to deduce what the human needs are, in terms of mobility. The goal is to provide user- and context-adaptive active support and ambulation assistance to elderly users, and generally to individuals with specific forms of moderate to mild walking impairment.

To achieve such a goal for the development of an efficient and intelligent robotic assistant, a variety of multimodal interaction and cognitive control functionalities must be embedded, so that the robot can autonomously reason about how to provide optimal support to the user whenever and wherever needed. In particular, MOBOT aims to design and deliver a cognitive mobility-aid robot that can act both:

ReMeDi is an EU Framework 7 funded project aimed at developing a robot system that features medical tele-examination of patients. The project is coordinated by UWE’s Angelika Peer who leads a consortium of seven European partners from five countries.

Successful medical treatment depends on a timely and correct diagnosis, but the availability of doctors of various specialisations is limited, especially in provincial hospitals or after regular working hours. Medical services performed remotely are emerging, yet current solutions are limited to merely teleconferencing and are insufficient. Use case scenarios targeted in ReMeDi feature a robot capable of performing a physical examination, specifically of the two most widespread examination techniques:

Beside quality teleconferencing, ReMeDi features a mobile robot (placed in a hospital) equipped with a lightweight and inherently safe manipulator with an advanced sensorised head and/or ultrasonic probe; and the remote interface (placed at the doctor’s location) equipped with sophisticated force-feedback, active vision and locomotion capabilities. The system is incrementally built following a user-centered design approach, and its usability with respect to the patient and the examining doctor is extensively studied in real world scenarios of cardiac examination.

ReMeDi will go beyond classical telepresence concepts. It will capture and process multi-sensory data (integrating visual, haptic, speech, patient’s emotions and physiological responses) into perception and reasoning capabilities making ReMeDi a diagnostic assistant offering context-dependent and proactive support for the doctor. Particular attention is devoted to safety aspects. The normative standards (both existing and in draft) and the results of ongoing research projects will be integrated in all the system development phases.