Title: Sensing and Understanding Humans by a Robot
Jim Torresen
Robotics and Intelligent Systems Group
University of Oslo, Norway
Abstract. The recent progress in computational intelligence demonstrates how to effectively sense and understand human behavior. At the University of Oslo, we work – supported by the Research Council of Norway – with research on various types of sensors relevant to analyzing human non-verbal expressions and their activities. This is relevant for robots looking after and assisting older people living at home. Introducing this ongoing work is the topic of this talk. We address the challenge of the expected shortage of healthcare resources in the future as the proportion of elderly people worldwide increases. To handle this challenge, it becomes important that people live as long as possible in their own homes which is also what most older people want themselves. Thus, a rising issue is how to incorporate technology to find efficient solutions for health monitoring and care for older people staying at home. Our projects address computational intelligence research for robots on sensing, reasoning and control, and through interdisciplinary collaboration, as well as legal and ethical issues. We think that design with user participation is important, and thus, we have increased our attention on human–robot interaction studies. This talk will introduce some examples from our work and how we address it from a technical, legal and ethical side.