Wednesday 24 October 2018 – Lunchtime seminar with Dr Silvia Rossi (University of Naples Federico II, Italy)

Title: User Profiling and Behaviour Adaptation for Socially Assistive Robotics: the case of the UPA4SAR project
Speaker: Dr Silvia Rossi – Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica e Tecnologie dell’Informazione (DIETI), University of Naples Federico II, Italy
Date and time: Wednesday 24th October 2018, 1pm-2pm
Hosted by: Dr Alessandro Di Nuovo, Sheffield Hallam University

Abstract:
The goal of the UPA4SAR project is to design an adaptive behaviour of a robotic system that is in charge of monitoring the user’s Activity of Daily Living (ADL) in the case of people with dementia. In our opinion, the robot presence, in order to be effective and well accepted by users, must be the least invasive as possible. In fact, an interactive robotic device whose behaviour is unrelated to the specific needs of a person, his/her abilities and preferences can cause discomfort. The majority of the robotic applications are based on static user models and on the specification of all the possible contexts of interaction. This makes such systems incapable of adapting independently and proactively to changes in the needs and preferences of users. In this direction, our goal is to design an adaptive behaviour of the robotic system that is able to regulate its social interaction parameters (e.g., the interaction distances, proxemics, the speed of movements, and the same modality of interaction) on the basis of personality factors as well as of the cognitive state of the user.

The talk will provide an overview on the project focusing on how obtaining a profile of the user and, consequently, the robot behaviour adaptation at different levels of abstraction starting from the physical level toward more cognitive and social aspect on the interaction.

Biography:
Silvia Rossi is currently Assistant Professor at University of Naples Federico II. She is manager of the PRISCA (Intelligent Robotics and Advanced Cognitive System Projects) lab and Principal Investigator of the National Project UPA4SAR “User-centred Profiling and Adaptation for Socially Assistive Robotics”. Her research interests include Multi-agent Systems, Human-Robot Interaction, Socially Assistive Robotics, and Recommender Systems. She is Associate Editor for IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L) and for Intelligent Service Robotics journal. She is the general chair of RO-MAN 2020, Workshop/Tutorial co-Chair of RO-MAN 2018 and HRI 2019, Special Session Chair for RO-MAN 2018, and Publicity Chair for ICSR 2018.

1.00PM-2.00PM
WEDNESDAY 24 OCTOBER 2018
CANTOR 9003, CITY CAMPUS, SHEFFIELD HALLAM UNIVERSITY

See here for details of other seminars in the series.

All SHU staff and students are welcome to attend the C3RI Lunchtime Research Seminars. If you are from outside of the University and would like to attend a seminar, please email the C3RI Administrator to arrange entry.