Week of Events
Human-Robot Interaction and Human-Robot Teams: GBS SENSOR WEEK PRESENTATION
Human-Robot Interaction and Human-Robot Teams: GBS SENSOR WEEK PRESENTATION
The ability of a robot to operate in an uncertain environment, such as near humans or far away under human control, potentially opens myriad uses. Examples include robots preparing the Mars surface for human arrival; robots for assembly of large space telescopes; robot helpers for the elderly; robotic search and disposal of war mines. So far advances in this area have been coming slowly, with a focus on specific tasks rather than a universal ability typical in nature. Challenges appear both on the robotics side and on the human side: robots have a hard time adjusting to an unstructured environment, whereas human cognition has serious limits in adjusting to robots and grasping complex 2D and 3D motion tasks. As a result, applications where robots operate near humans – or far away under their control – are exceedingly rare. The way out of this impasse is to supply the robot with whole-body sensing - an ability to sense surrounding objects at the robot’s whole body - and algorithms capable of utilizing these data in real-time. This calls for large-area flexible sensing arrays - sensitive skin covering the whole robot body akin to the skin covering the human body. Whole-body sensing brings interesting, even unexpected, properties: powerful robots become inherently safe; human operators can move them fast, with “natural” speeds; robot motion strategies exceed human spatial reasoning skills; it becomes realistic to utilize the natural synergy of human-robot teams and allow a mix of supervised and unsupervised robot operation. We will review the cognitive science, mathematical, algorithmic, and hardware (materials, electronics, computing) issues involved in realizing such systems. Speaker(s): Vladimir, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/318482
Wearable Computing Systems based on Body Sensor Networks: State-of-the-art and Future Research Challenges:: GBS SENSOR WEEK PRESENTATION
Wearable Computing Systems based on Body Sensor Networks: State-of-the-art and Future Research Challenges:: GBS SENSOR WEEK PRESENTATION
Wearable computing is a relatively new area of research and development that aims at supporting people in different application domains: health-care (monitoring assisted living), fitness (monitoring athletes), social interactions (enabling multi-user activity recognition, e.g. handshake), videogames (enabling joystick-less interactions), factory (monitoring employees in their activity), etc. Wearable computing is based on wearable computing devices/interfaces such as sensor nodes (e.g. to measure heart rate, temperature, blood oxygen, etc), common life objects (e.g. watch, belt, etc), and smartphones/PDA. Wearable computing has been recently boosted by the introduction of body sensor networks (BSNs), i.e. networks of wireless wearable sensor nodes coordinated by more capable coordinators (smartphones, tablets, PCs). Although the basic elements (sensors, protocols, coordinators) of a BSN are available (already from a commercial point of view), developing BSN systems/applications is a complex task that requires suitable design methods based on effective and efficient programming frameworks. In this DL, we will first discuss the state-of-the-art of currently available wearable computing systems based on BSNs. Then, we will focus on the main results achieved in the SPINE project (http://spine.deis.unical.it), currently led by Prof. Fortino’s research group, in terms of defined models, methodology, algorithms, and real prototypes (e.g. activity/gesture recognition systems, fall detection systems, mobile ECG processing systems, elbow/knee rehabilitation systems, emotion recognition systems, etc.). Based on SPINE, we also developed C-SPINE to support the development of collaborative systems based on BSNs and able to detect/classify multi-user activity. Examples will be given in the area of COVID-19 tracing and support platforms. Finally, the DL will enumerate and discuss future research challenges along with possible solutions in such exciting research domains. Learning points: • Body sensor networks: sensors (physiological sensors, inertial sensors, pressure sensors), architectures and communications patterns/protocols • Body sensor networks programming and management issues • The SPINE (Signal Processing In-Node Environment) framework: basic concepts (sensors hardware adaptation, drivers addition, sensors programming, data collection, in-node data processing) • SPINE wearable sensor-based prototypes: from Human Activity recognition to Cardiac Defense Response detection and Limb Rehabilitation. • C-SPINE for the Development of Collaborative BSNs and its application for humans’ tracing/distancing platforms • Future research challenges in BSNs: from wearable stretchable sensors to autonomic sensor platforms. Speaker(s): Giancarl, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/318483
Mobile robot olfaction:: GBS SENSOR WEEK PRESENTATION
Mobile robot olfaction:: GBS SENSOR WEEK PRESENTATION
Mobile robot olfaction studies the integration and application of the sense of smell into mobile robots. This widely multidisciplinary research area deals with a variety of problems such as chemical sensing, odour dispersion and environmental state estimation, optimal sampling, wide area searching, path planning, and machine learning. This talk provides an overview of the field, introducing the odour dispersion phenomenon and the problems of finding its parameters from the inversion of concentration measurements. Then, a brief survey of the existing odour sensing technologies and their corresponding limitations is provided. The main methods to search odour sources with mobile robots are reactive strategies, heuristic search, and probabilistic inference methods. These approaches are frequently dependent on the environment characteristics, but this dependence may be mitigated by machine learning approaches. Speaker(s): Giancarl, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/318485
MOBILE ROBOT OLFACTION (Galveston Tx)
MOBILE ROBOT OLFACTION (Galveston Tx)
Mobile robot olfaction studies the integration and application of the sense of smell into mobile robots. This widely multidisciplinary research area deals with a variety of problems such as chemical sensing, odour dispersion and environmental state estimation, optimal sampling, wide area searching, path planning, and machine learning. This talk provides an overview of the field, introducing the odour dispersion phenomenon and the problems of finding its parameters from the inversion of concentration measurements. Then, a brief survey of the existing odour sensing technologies and their corresponding limitations is provided. The main methods to search odour sources with mobile robots are reactive strategies, heuristic search, and probabilistic inference methods. These approaches are frequently dependent on the environment characteristics, but this dependence may be mitigated by machine learning approaches. More information: (https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/318485) Co-sponsored by: S Z Taqvi Speaker(s): Lino Marques, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/event/register/318797