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A large percentage of buildings, domestic or special-purpose, is expected to become increasingly “smarter” in the future, due to the immense benefits in terms of energy saving, safety, flexibility, and comfort, that relevant new... more
A large percentage of buildings, domestic or special-purpose, is expected to become increasingly “smarter” in the future, due to the immense benefits in terms of energy saving, safety, flexibility, and comfort, that relevant new technologies offer. However, concerning the hardware, software, or platform levels, no clearly dominant standard frameworks currently exist. Here, we will present a prototype platform for supporting multiple concurrent applications for smart buildings, which is utilizing an advanced sensor network as well as a distributed micro services architecture, centrally featuring the Jolie language. The architecture and benefits of our system are discussed, as well as a prototype containing a number of nodes and a user interface, deployed in a real-world academic building environment. Our results illustrate the promising nature of our approach, as well as open avenues for future work towards it wider and larger scale applicability.
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In order to create effective storytelling agents three fundamental questions must be answered: first, is a physically embodied agent preferable to a virtual agent or a voice-only narration? Second, does a human voice have an advantage... more
In order to create effective storytelling agents three fundamental questions must be answered: first, is a physically embodied agent preferable to a virtual agent or a voice-only narration? Second, does a human voice have an advantage over a synthesized voice? Third, how should the emotional trajectory of the different characters in a story be related to a storyteller’s facial expressions during storytelling time, and how does this correlate with the apparent emotions on the faces of the listeners? The results of two specially designed studies indicate that the physically embodied robot produces more narrative attention to the listener as compared to a virtual embodiment, that a human voice is preferable over the current state of the art of text-to-speech, and that there is a complex yet interesting relation between the emotion lines of the story, the facial expressions of the narrating agent, and the emotions of the listener, and that the empathizing of the listener is evident thro...
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Research Interests: Computer Science, Training, Affective Computing, Teleoperation, Grippers, and 13 moreROBOT, Human Robot Interaction, Feedback, Teleoperated Robots, Telerobotics, Operator training, Robotics Manipulators, Operator training simulator, Joints, Cranes, Haptic Interfaces, Manipulators, and Educational Robots
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Research Interests: Computer Science, Interactive Theatre, Humanoid Robotics, Augmented Reality, Ibn Sina, and 13 moreAndroid Science, Virtual Worlds, Virtual Reality, Mobile Robots, Virtual Environment, Human Body, Humanoid robots, Human Robot Interaction, Cultural value, Real Time, Telerobotics, Humanoid robot, and Virtual Characters
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The overarching goal of the FaceBots project is to support the achievement of sustainable long-term human-robot relationships through the creation of robots with face recognition and natural language capabilities, which exploit and... more
The overarching goal of the FaceBots project is to support the achievement of sustainable long-term human-robot relationships through the creation of robots with face recognition and natural language capabilities, which exploit and publish online information, and especially social information available on Facebook, and which achieve two significant novelties. The underlying experimental hypothesis is that such relationships can be significantly enhanced if the human and the robot are gradually creating a pool of episodic memories that they can co-refer to (“shared memories”), and if they are both embedded in a social web of other humans and robots they mutually know (“shared friends”). We present a description of system architecture, as well as important concrete results regarding face recognition and transferability of training, with training and testing sets coming from either one or a combination of two sources: an onboard camera which can provide sequences of images, as well as ...
Research Interests: Engineering, Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Social Networks, Social Networking, and 12 morePattern Recognition, Face Recognition, Social Robotics, Episodic Memory, Social Web, System Architecture, Natural language, Shared memory, Human Robot Interaction, Evaluation Methodology, Transfer of Training, and Social Network
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Abstract. As humanoid robot technology makes its way into the global economy, it is important for robot designers to try to understand the variety of cultural attitudes that exist throughout the world. However, to our knowledge, no one... more
Abstract. As humanoid robot technology makes its way into the global economy, it is important for robot designers to try to understand the variety of cultural attitudes that exist throughout the world. However, to our knowledge, no one has yet surveyed Middle ...
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Research Interests: Algorithms, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, Communication, Natural Language Processing, and 15 moreImagination, Language, Multidisciplinary, Language Comprehension, Face Detection, Mental Imagery, Face to Face, Mental Models, Human Robot Interaction, Mental processes, Active Vision, MENTAL MODEL, Mental Simulation, Grounding, and Natural Languages
Abstract How can we build robots that engage in fluid spoken conversations with people, moving beyond canned responses and towards actual understanding? Many difficult questions arise regarding the nature of word meanings, and how those... more
Abstract How can we build robots that engage in fluid spoken conversations with people, moving beyond canned responses and towards actual understanding? Many difficult questions arise regarding the nature of word meanings, and how those meanings are grounded in the ...
Research Interests: Semantics, Cognition, Metaphor, Lexical Semantics, Imagination, and 13 moreLanguage, Knowledge Representation, Translation, Simulation, Mental Simulations, Data Structure, Symbol Grounding, Active Vision, MENTAL MODEL, Mental Simulation, Natural language interface, Physical Environment, and Natural Language Interfaces
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Towards our vision of natural robotic tele-presence by thought, a real-world system which was demonstrated in public with non-expert users is presented. The system consists of an EEG-based brain computer interface module (BCI), located in... more
Towards our vision of natural robotic tele-presence by thought, a real-world system which was demonstrated in public with non-expert users is presented. The system consists of an EEG-based brain computer interface module (BCI), located in Cyprus, and relying on machine learning methods for recognizing brain patterns and translating them into control commands. The BCI module is controlling Ibn Sina, an android robot which is located 1400 miles away in the United Arab Emirates, in real-time, through an IP connection. Visual feedback from the robot is provided through a video link to the users. Previously untrained human users operated the system in multiple occasions (during public demos). We describe the demonstrations, as well as the structure of our system, and report quantitative measures of our system’s performance. This is up to our knowledge the first time that non-expert humans have controlled a remote android through thought during a public demonstration.