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Designing Robots, Designing HumansWhilst most research concentrates on the imagined future of robotics, this book brings together a group of international researchers to explore the different ways that robots and humans engage with one another at this point in history. Robotic design is advancing at an incredible pace, and consequently the role of robots has expanded beyond mechanical work in the industrial sector to the social and domestic environment. From kitchen table pets in the shape of dinasaurs and baby seals, to robot arms that assist with eating, to self-driving cars, this book explores the psychological impact of robotic engagement, especially in domestic settings. Each chapter explores a different aspect of humanoid robotics, for example, the relationship between robotics and gender, citizenship, moral agency, ethics, inequality, and psychological development, as well as exploring the growing role of robots in education, care work, and intimate relationships.
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Fuzzy rule based neuro-dynamic programming for mobile robot skill acquisition on the basis of a nested multi-agent architectureBiologically inspired architectures that mimic the organizational structure of living organisms and in general frameworks that will improve the design of intelligent robots attract significant attention from the research community. Self-organization problems, intrinsic behaviors as well as effective learning and skill transfer processes in the context of robotic systems have been significantly investigated by researchers. Our work presents a new framework of developmental skill learning process by introducing a hierarchical nested multi-agent architecture. A neuro-dynamic learning mechanism employing function approximators in a fuzzified state-space is utilized, leading to a collaborative control scheme among the distributed agents engaged in a continuous space, which enables the multi-agent system to learn, over a period of time, how to perform sequences of continuous actions in a cooperative manner without any prior task model. The agents comprising the system manage to gain experience over the task that they collaboratively perform by continuously exploring and exploiting their state-to-action mapping space. For the specific problem setting, the proposed theoretical framework is employed in the case of two simulated e-Puck robots performing a collaborative box-pushing task. This task involves active cooperation between the robots in order to jointly push an object on a plane to a specified goal location. We should note that 1) there are no contact points specified for the two e-Pucks and 2) the shape of the object is indifferent. The actuated wheels of the mobile robots are considered as the independent agents that have to build up cooperative skills over time, in order for the robot to demonstrate intelligent behavior. Our goal in this experimental study is to evaluate both the proposed hierarchical multi-agent architecture, as well as the methodological control framework. Such a hierarchical multi-agent approach is envisioned to be highly scalable for the control of complex biologically inspired robot locomotion systems. © 2010 IEEE.
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The Future of Service Robotics; A qualitative study of ten service robot segments from a technology innovation adoption perspectiveThe market for service robots is emerging in a broad number of applications, personal as well as professional. Following new technology, robots has increasingly left the confide spaces in industrial applications and entered into our everyday lives. For industry stakeholders, the emergence of the service robotics field, which undoubtedly hold significant potential, is associated with large uncertainty and actors throughout the value chain stand to gain if some clarity could be offered on the subject. Following this, the purpose of this study is to lessen that uncertainty by providing an accurate picture of the industry as of 2016 and by presenting a possible future development for each of the included service robot segments. Empirical findings gathered from industry participants, researchers and company representatives are used to map the industry today and to collect beliefs about the future. A forecast is then performed through a qualitative analysis of the empirical findings, from a perspective of technology innovation adoption theory. The study finds that there are several trends supporting a strong future development of service robotics. Firstly, technological advancements will continue to enhance the robot’s capabilities, thus making them more attractive. Secondly, several macro-economic trends including increased cost of labour and decreasing prices on input goods will further promote increased adoption. Given the various characteristics of the robots, a qualitative analysis for the future adoption of each segment is presented as well as an aggregated conclusion for all included segments. The study finds that the annual shipments in 2016, for all included segments, are approximately 7,9 million units, with an estimated total value of US$ 12.9 billion. This same figure in 2026, in the end of the forecast period, is approximately 58,3 million units, with an estimated value of US$ 78.5 billion.