Towards Socially Assistive Robotics

Towards Socially Assistive Robotics

Personalized Socially Assistive Robotics

The start of the 21st century, with its confluence of scientific and technological sophistication, presents a unique opportunity for robotics to positively impact human quality of life. Significant and growing societal needs include the lack of personalized one-on-one care for the growing populations of elderly individuals, children with developmental disorders, and those with special life-long...

Ethical Principles for Socially Assistive Robotics

The health, education, and other service applications for robots that assist through primarily social rather than physical interaction are rapidly growing, and so is the research into such technologies. Socially assistive robotics (SAR) aims to address critical areas and gaps in care by automating supervision, coaching, motivation, and companionship aspects of one-on-one interactions with indiv...

Benchmarks for evaluating socially assistive robotics

Socially assistive robotics (SAR) is a growing area of research. Evaluating SAR systems presents novel challenges. Using a robot for a socially assistive task can have various benefits and ethical implications. Many questions are important to understanding whether a robot is effective for a given application domain. This paper describes several benchmarks for evaluating SAR systems. There exist...

Socially assistive robotics: Human augmentation versus automation

Robotics development has been driven by the desire to automate work. The possible impli­ cations of machines doing human work are a topic of ongoing debates. Discussions often center on economic concerns, but another im portant outcome is the impact on human health. The science on longevity and resilience indicates that the drive to stay physically and cognitively active is necessary for health...