IET International Conference on Technologies for Active and Assisted Living (TechAAL), 2015
The integration of Internet of Things (IoT) into our daily lives has the potential to significant... more The integration of Internet of Things (IoT) into our daily lives has the potential to significantly improve the quality of life and well-being of citizens, especially older adults who want to continue to live independently in their own home. In order to realise the potential of IoT in the real-world, there are four major concerns that should be considered: ensuring sensors are un-intrusive, the resources required for the installation and maintenance of sensors, the large amounts of unlabelled data produced and the noise in the data that is typical of real environments. In this research we investigate a measure of the interaction with everyday objects -“busyness”, generated from a set of discrete wireless sensors that addresses these issues. We present a case study to assess the feasibility and advantages of using a minimal number of sensors to develop a “busyness” measure for recognising specific activities (hot drink making) over a short learning period. The results of these case studies show that the “busyness” metric at different levels of granularity can be used to monitor the user's habits using a commercial IoT system and aggregate data.
This work explored the use of human–robot interaction research to investigate robot ethics. A lon... more This work explored the use of human–robot interaction research to investigate robot ethics. A longitudinal human–robot interaction study was conducted with self-reported healthy older adults to determine whether expression of artificial emotions by a social robot could result in emotional deception and emotional attachment. The findings from this study have highlighted that currently there appears to be no adequate tools, or the means, to determine the ethical impact and concerns ensuing from long-term interactions between social robots and older adults. This raises the question whether we should continue the fundamental development of social robots if we cannot determine their potential negative impact and whether we should shift our focus to the development of human–robot interaction assessment tools that provide more objective measures of ethical impact.
This paper presents current progress in the development of Environmental Survey Hazard Analysis (... more This paper presents current progress in the development of Environmental Survey Hazard Analysis (ESHA), a method of preliminary hazard identification aimed at autonomous system application problems. In addition to performing their design mission, autonomous systems must be capable of reliable and predictable behaviour in their environments, particularly when facing potential hazards that are not explicitly included in their design specifications (’non-mission’ tasks). ESHA differs from conventional hazard identification methods in that its scope explicitly covers the identification of non-mission interactions between a system and its environment and any associated hazards. Although of general use as a safety analysis technique, ESHA has been designed primarily to support a ”so far as is reasonably practicable” (SFAIRP) style of safety argument. However, early versions of the method were based on informal models, and therefore provided only weak support. This paper reviews the develo...
Compared to traditional cars, where the driver has most of their attention allocated on the road ... more Compared to traditional cars, where the driver has most of their attention allocated on the road and on driving tasks, in fully autonomous vehicles it is likely that the user would not need to intervene with driving related functions meaning that there will be little need for HMIs to have features and functionality relating to these factors. However, there will be an opportunity for a range of other interactions with the user. As such, designers and researchers need to have an understanding of what is actually needed or expected and how to balance the type of functionality they make available. Also, in HMI design, the design principles need to be considered in relation to a range of user characteristics, such as age, and sensory, cognitive and physical ability and other impairments. In this study, we proposed an HMI specially designed for connected autonomous vehicles with a focus on older adults. We examined older adults’ preferences of CAV HMI functions, and, the degree to which i...
The rehabilitation of executive functions is seen as a key factor for successful reintegration in... more The rehabilitation of executive functions is seen as a key factor for successful reintegration into the community following an acquired brain injury. Seemingly basic everyday tasks require the complex coordination of many cognitive abilities, any of which can be negatively impacted by the brain injury. Specifically it may inhibit a person's ability to deal with temptations, frustrations and distractions. We have found existing therapeutic interventions to be effective in the treatment of executive dysfunction, but lacking in flexibility, and therefore generalisation to real world scenarios. These options also offer limited opportunity for stimulating reflection. Our work is intended to generate a framework for supporting reflection in social simulations, such that they may be incorporated into the therapeutic practices of clinicians who are concerned with executive functioning.
Rapidly developing Autonomous Vehicle (AV) technology has potential to provide solutions to some ... more Rapidly developing Autonomous Vehicle (AV) technology has potential to provide solutions to some of the aging population challenges, such as social isolation resulting from an inability to be independently mobile. However for AVs success, users’ acceptance is essential. Fifteen participants (M 70 years) participated in an autonomous driving simulator trial with voice-based CAV status feedback in a decision-making scenario – whether to pick up a friend on the way. The within-subject conditions/journeys were: Audio feedback (Audio)/Pick-Up; Audio/No-Pick-Up; No-Audio/Pick-Up. Additionally, the effect of feedback during different external journey conditions was also considered, resulting in two between-subjects conditions – day and night travel. Participants physiological, cognitive and affective measures show greater situational awareness and workload ratings in the No-Audio/Pick-Up condition with increased Post-trial trust rating and overall higher positive affect. These results indi...
An interdisciplinary team at the University of the West of England (UWE) was commissioned and fun... more An interdisciplinary team at the University of the West of England (UWE) was commissioned and funded to develop a mobile phone app which would provide self-help options for the management of mild to moderate anxiety. The completed app would extend the range and availability of psychological support for student well-being at UWE and other higher education institutions. The project team consisted of two computer scientists and one psychologist who were responsible for the technical, functional and clinical specification of the app. A local mobile app development company was appointed and the teams collaborated on the design, build and evaluation of the app. The self-help structure and components were developed in consultation with therapeutic practitioners, in and out of UWE. The developer team advised on and constructed multi-media features to realise the self-help aims of the app. The UWE project team promoted an iterative approach to development, evaluating each stage of developmen...
Driving cessation for some older adults can exacerbate physical, cognitive, and mental health cha... more Driving cessation for some older adults can exacerbate physical, cognitive, and mental health challenges due to loss of independence and social isolation. Fully autonomous vehicles may offer an alternative transport solution, increasing social contact and encouraging independence. However, there are gaps in understanding the impact of older adults’ passive role on safe human–vehicle interaction, and on their well-being. 37 older adults (mean age ± SD = 68.35 ± 8.49 years) participated in an experiment where they experienced fully autonomous journeys consisting of a distinct stop (an unexpected event versus an expected event). The autonomous behavior of the vehicle was achieved using the Wizard of Oz approach. Subjective ratings of trust and reliability, and driver state monitoring including visual attention strategies (fixation duration and count) and physiological arousal (skin conductance and heart rate), were captured during the journeys. Results revealed that subjective trust an...
This paper describes an Interactive Parameter Adaptation Tool (IPAT) for determining parameters t... more This paper describes an Interactive Parameter Adaptation Tool (IPAT) for determining parameters to control texture based segmentation of Regions of Interest (ROI) on images. This tool enables non-image processing experts to interact with evolutionary algorithms to produce a set of ROI segmentation parameters that are capable of segmenting ROI in response to existing system constraints.
Hazard analysis methods such as HAZOP and STPA have proven to be effective methods for assurance ... more Hazard analysis methods such as HAZOP and STPA have proven to be effective methods for assurance of system safety for years. However, the dimensionality and human factors uncertainty of many assistive robotic applications challenges the capability of these methods to provide comprehensive coverage of safety issues from interdisciplinary perspectives in a timely and cost-effective manner. Physically assistive tasks in which a range of dynamic contexts require continuous human–robot physical interaction such as e.g., robot-assisted dressing or sit-to-stand pose a new paradigm for safe design and safety analysis methodology. For these types of tasks, considerations have to be made for a range of dynamic contexts where the robot-assistance requires close and continuous physical contact with users. Current regulations mainly cover industrial collaborative robotics regarding physical human–robot interaction (pHRI) but largely neglects direct and continuous physical human contact. In this ...
A modified neocognitron neural network suitable for medical signal classification is presented. T... more A modified neocognitron neural network suitable for medical signal classification is presented. The network's functionality is demonstrated on an application involving the classification of breathing signals measured on patients recovering from surgery. The performance of the system was found to be equivalent, and in some cases, better than a standard technique used for comparison. The main advantage of this system is that it allows for a detailed analysis into the decisions made by the system. Additionally, its internal property enables the rejection of inputs which are found to be too different to the learned ones, the thresholds for rejection can be set by tuning the structure of the network and selectivity of the cells in the network. This makes it possible to detect artefacts or identify new classes that might exist, in addition to providing the appropriate classification in the final step of the processing chain. Figure 1: Structure of the Neocognitron Figure 2: Connection...
Companion of the 2020 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, Mar 23, 2020
With the increasing use of social robots in real environments, one of the areas of research requi... more With the increasing use of social robots in real environments, one of the areas of research requiring more attention is the study of human-robot interaction (HRI) when a person and robot are moving close to each other. Understanding effective ways to design how a robot should communicate its intention during dynamic movement is based on what people's expectations are and how they interpret different cues from the robot. Building on the existing literature, we tested a range of non-verbal cues such as eye contact, gaze and head nodding as part of the robot's behaviour during close proximate passing. The research aimed to investigate the effects of these cues, as well as their combination with body posture, on the efficiency of passing and the quality of HRI. Our results show that the combination of eye contact and the robot turning sideways is the most effective and appropriate compared to other modalities.
Recent demographics indicate that we have a growing population of older adults with increasingly ... more Recent demographics indicate that we have a growing population of older adults with increasingly complex care-related needs, and a shrinking care workforce with limited resources to support them. As a result, there are a large number of research initiatives investigating the potential of intelligent robots in a domestic environment to augment the support care-givers can provide and improve older adults’ well-being, particularly by motivating them in staying fit and healthy through exercise. In this paper, we propose a robot-based coaching system which encourages collaboration with the user to collect person-specific exercise-related movement data. The aim is to personalise the experience of exercise sessions and provide directed feedback to the user to help improve their performance. The way each individual user is likely to perform specific movements will be based on their personal ability and range of motion, and it is important for a coaching system to recognise the movements and...
A key challenge in achieving effective robot teleoperation is minimizing teleoperators’ cognitive... more A key challenge in achieving effective robot teleoperation is minimizing teleoperators’ cognitive workload and fatigue. We set out to investigate the extent to which gaze tracking data can reveal how teleoperators interact with a system. In this study, we present an analysis of gaze tracking, captured as participants completed a multi-stage task: grasping and emptying the contents of a jar into a container. The task was repeated with different combinations of visual, haptic, and verbal feedback. Our aim was to determine if teleoperation workload can be inferred by combining the gaze duration, fixation count, task completion time, and complexity of robot motion (measured as the sum of robot joint steps) at different stages of the task. Visual information of the robot workspace was captured using four cameras, positioned to capture the robot workspace from different angles. These camera views (aerial, right, eye-level, and left) were displayed through four quadrants (top-left, top-rig...
2021 17th International Conference on Intelligent Environments (IE)
Internet of Things (IoT) technology and Smart Home (SH) solutions are a growing area of research ... more Internet of Things (IoT) technology and Smart Home (SH) solutions are a growing area of research and development, particularly within health and social care where they have potential to offer information and support for self-management and independent living. However, successful design and deployment of these technologies are predicated on a clear understanding of user aspirations, needs, and requirements. This paper presents findings from seven one-to-one interviews with care staff who contributed their experiences representing a diverse range of job roles and categories of service-users supported. Our participants were from a regional supported-living provider with facilities for people with learning disabilities. The interviews provided insight into care service provision and service-users’ needs, as well as helping to identify areas of the current service that can be supported by IoT based intelligent systems. The feedback that staff provided was based on their knowledge and understanding of the needs of specific service user groups and included information regarding the appropriateness and applicability of the technologies, as well as the appeal, acceptability and usability of these solutions.
IET International Conference on Technologies for Active and Assisted Living (TechAAL), 2015
The integration of Internet of Things (IoT) into our daily lives has the potential to significant... more The integration of Internet of Things (IoT) into our daily lives has the potential to significantly improve the quality of life and well-being of citizens, especially older adults who want to continue to live independently in their own home. In order to realise the potential of IoT in the real-world, there are four major concerns that should be considered: ensuring sensors are un-intrusive, the resources required for the installation and maintenance of sensors, the large amounts of unlabelled data produced and the noise in the data that is typical of real environments. In this research we investigate a measure of the interaction with everyday objects -“busyness”, generated from a set of discrete wireless sensors that addresses these issues. We present a case study to assess the feasibility and advantages of using a minimal number of sensors to develop a “busyness” measure for recognising specific activities (hot drink making) over a short learning period. The results of these case studies show that the “busyness” metric at different levels of granularity can be used to monitor the user's habits using a commercial IoT system and aggregate data.
This work explored the use of human–robot interaction research to investigate robot ethics. A lon... more This work explored the use of human–robot interaction research to investigate robot ethics. A longitudinal human–robot interaction study was conducted with self-reported healthy older adults to determine whether expression of artificial emotions by a social robot could result in emotional deception and emotional attachment. The findings from this study have highlighted that currently there appears to be no adequate tools, or the means, to determine the ethical impact and concerns ensuing from long-term interactions between social robots and older adults. This raises the question whether we should continue the fundamental development of social robots if we cannot determine their potential negative impact and whether we should shift our focus to the development of human–robot interaction assessment tools that provide more objective measures of ethical impact.
This paper presents current progress in the development of Environmental Survey Hazard Analysis (... more This paper presents current progress in the development of Environmental Survey Hazard Analysis (ESHA), a method of preliminary hazard identification aimed at autonomous system application problems. In addition to performing their design mission, autonomous systems must be capable of reliable and predictable behaviour in their environments, particularly when facing potential hazards that are not explicitly included in their design specifications (’non-mission’ tasks). ESHA differs from conventional hazard identification methods in that its scope explicitly covers the identification of non-mission interactions between a system and its environment and any associated hazards. Although of general use as a safety analysis technique, ESHA has been designed primarily to support a ”so far as is reasonably practicable” (SFAIRP) style of safety argument. However, early versions of the method were based on informal models, and therefore provided only weak support. This paper reviews the develo...
Compared to traditional cars, where the driver has most of their attention allocated on the road ... more Compared to traditional cars, where the driver has most of their attention allocated on the road and on driving tasks, in fully autonomous vehicles it is likely that the user would not need to intervene with driving related functions meaning that there will be little need for HMIs to have features and functionality relating to these factors. However, there will be an opportunity for a range of other interactions with the user. As such, designers and researchers need to have an understanding of what is actually needed or expected and how to balance the type of functionality they make available. Also, in HMI design, the design principles need to be considered in relation to a range of user characteristics, such as age, and sensory, cognitive and physical ability and other impairments. In this study, we proposed an HMI specially designed for connected autonomous vehicles with a focus on older adults. We examined older adults’ preferences of CAV HMI functions, and, the degree to which i...
The rehabilitation of executive functions is seen as a key factor for successful reintegration in... more The rehabilitation of executive functions is seen as a key factor for successful reintegration into the community following an acquired brain injury. Seemingly basic everyday tasks require the complex coordination of many cognitive abilities, any of which can be negatively impacted by the brain injury. Specifically it may inhibit a person's ability to deal with temptations, frustrations and distractions. We have found existing therapeutic interventions to be effective in the treatment of executive dysfunction, but lacking in flexibility, and therefore generalisation to real world scenarios. These options also offer limited opportunity for stimulating reflection. Our work is intended to generate a framework for supporting reflection in social simulations, such that they may be incorporated into the therapeutic practices of clinicians who are concerned with executive functioning.
Rapidly developing Autonomous Vehicle (AV) technology has potential to provide solutions to some ... more Rapidly developing Autonomous Vehicle (AV) technology has potential to provide solutions to some of the aging population challenges, such as social isolation resulting from an inability to be independently mobile. However for AVs success, users’ acceptance is essential. Fifteen participants (M 70 years) participated in an autonomous driving simulator trial with voice-based CAV status feedback in a decision-making scenario – whether to pick up a friend on the way. The within-subject conditions/journeys were: Audio feedback (Audio)/Pick-Up; Audio/No-Pick-Up; No-Audio/Pick-Up. Additionally, the effect of feedback during different external journey conditions was also considered, resulting in two between-subjects conditions – day and night travel. Participants physiological, cognitive and affective measures show greater situational awareness and workload ratings in the No-Audio/Pick-Up condition with increased Post-trial trust rating and overall higher positive affect. These results indi...
An interdisciplinary team at the University of the West of England (UWE) was commissioned and fun... more An interdisciplinary team at the University of the West of England (UWE) was commissioned and funded to develop a mobile phone app which would provide self-help options for the management of mild to moderate anxiety. The completed app would extend the range and availability of psychological support for student well-being at UWE and other higher education institutions. The project team consisted of two computer scientists and one psychologist who were responsible for the technical, functional and clinical specification of the app. A local mobile app development company was appointed and the teams collaborated on the design, build and evaluation of the app. The self-help structure and components were developed in consultation with therapeutic practitioners, in and out of UWE. The developer team advised on and constructed multi-media features to realise the self-help aims of the app. The UWE project team promoted an iterative approach to development, evaluating each stage of developmen...
Driving cessation for some older adults can exacerbate physical, cognitive, and mental health cha... more Driving cessation for some older adults can exacerbate physical, cognitive, and mental health challenges due to loss of independence and social isolation. Fully autonomous vehicles may offer an alternative transport solution, increasing social contact and encouraging independence. However, there are gaps in understanding the impact of older adults’ passive role on safe human–vehicle interaction, and on their well-being. 37 older adults (mean age ± SD = 68.35 ± 8.49 years) participated in an experiment where they experienced fully autonomous journeys consisting of a distinct stop (an unexpected event versus an expected event). The autonomous behavior of the vehicle was achieved using the Wizard of Oz approach. Subjective ratings of trust and reliability, and driver state monitoring including visual attention strategies (fixation duration and count) and physiological arousal (skin conductance and heart rate), were captured during the journeys. Results revealed that subjective trust an...
This paper describes an Interactive Parameter Adaptation Tool (IPAT) for determining parameters t... more This paper describes an Interactive Parameter Adaptation Tool (IPAT) for determining parameters to control texture based segmentation of Regions of Interest (ROI) on images. This tool enables non-image processing experts to interact with evolutionary algorithms to produce a set of ROI segmentation parameters that are capable of segmenting ROI in response to existing system constraints.
Hazard analysis methods such as HAZOP and STPA have proven to be effective methods for assurance ... more Hazard analysis methods such as HAZOP and STPA have proven to be effective methods for assurance of system safety for years. However, the dimensionality and human factors uncertainty of many assistive robotic applications challenges the capability of these methods to provide comprehensive coverage of safety issues from interdisciplinary perspectives in a timely and cost-effective manner. Physically assistive tasks in which a range of dynamic contexts require continuous human–robot physical interaction such as e.g., robot-assisted dressing or sit-to-stand pose a new paradigm for safe design and safety analysis methodology. For these types of tasks, considerations have to be made for a range of dynamic contexts where the robot-assistance requires close and continuous physical contact with users. Current regulations mainly cover industrial collaborative robotics regarding physical human–robot interaction (pHRI) but largely neglects direct and continuous physical human contact. In this ...
A modified neocognitron neural network suitable for medical signal classification is presented. T... more A modified neocognitron neural network suitable for medical signal classification is presented. The network's functionality is demonstrated on an application involving the classification of breathing signals measured on patients recovering from surgery. The performance of the system was found to be equivalent, and in some cases, better than a standard technique used for comparison. The main advantage of this system is that it allows for a detailed analysis into the decisions made by the system. Additionally, its internal property enables the rejection of inputs which are found to be too different to the learned ones, the thresholds for rejection can be set by tuning the structure of the network and selectivity of the cells in the network. This makes it possible to detect artefacts or identify new classes that might exist, in addition to providing the appropriate classification in the final step of the processing chain. Figure 1: Structure of the Neocognitron Figure 2: Connection...
Companion of the 2020 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, Mar 23, 2020
With the increasing use of social robots in real environments, one of the areas of research requi... more With the increasing use of social robots in real environments, one of the areas of research requiring more attention is the study of human-robot interaction (HRI) when a person and robot are moving close to each other. Understanding effective ways to design how a robot should communicate its intention during dynamic movement is based on what people's expectations are and how they interpret different cues from the robot. Building on the existing literature, we tested a range of non-verbal cues such as eye contact, gaze and head nodding as part of the robot's behaviour during close proximate passing. The research aimed to investigate the effects of these cues, as well as their combination with body posture, on the efficiency of passing and the quality of HRI. Our results show that the combination of eye contact and the robot turning sideways is the most effective and appropriate compared to other modalities.
Recent demographics indicate that we have a growing population of older adults with increasingly ... more Recent demographics indicate that we have a growing population of older adults with increasingly complex care-related needs, and a shrinking care workforce with limited resources to support them. As a result, there are a large number of research initiatives investigating the potential of intelligent robots in a domestic environment to augment the support care-givers can provide and improve older adults’ well-being, particularly by motivating them in staying fit and healthy through exercise. In this paper, we propose a robot-based coaching system which encourages collaboration with the user to collect person-specific exercise-related movement data. The aim is to personalise the experience of exercise sessions and provide directed feedback to the user to help improve their performance. The way each individual user is likely to perform specific movements will be based on their personal ability and range of motion, and it is important for a coaching system to recognise the movements and...
A key challenge in achieving effective robot teleoperation is minimizing teleoperators’ cognitive... more A key challenge in achieving effective robot teleoperation is minimizing teleoperators’ cognitive workload and fatigue. We set out to investigate the extent to which gaze tracking data can reveal how teleoperators interact with a system. In this study, we present an analysis of gaze tracking, captured as participants completed a multi-stage task: grasping and emptying the contents of a jar into a container. The task was repeated with different combinations of visual, haptic, and verbal feedback. Our aim was to determine if teleoperation workload can be inferred by combining the gaze duration, fixation count, task completion time, and complexity of robot motion (measured as the sum of robot joint steps) at different stages of the task. Visual information of the robot workspace was captured using four cameras, positioned to capture the robot workspace from different angles. These camera views (aerial, right, eye-level, and left) were displayed through four quadrants (top-left, top-rig...
2021 17th International Conference on Intelligent Environments (IE)
Internet of Things (IoT) technology and Smart Home (SH) solutions are a growing area of research ... more Internet of Things (IoT) technology and Smart Home (SH) solutions are a growing area of research and development, particularly within health and social care where they have potential to offer information and support for self-management and independent living. However, successful design and deployment of these technologies are predicated on a clear understanding of user aspirations, needs, and requirements. This paper presents findings from seven one-to-one interviews with care staff who contributed their experiences representing a diverse range of job roles and categories of service-users supported. Our participants were from a regional supported-living provider with facilities for people with learning disabilities. The interviews provided insight into care service provision and service-users’ needs, as well as helping to identify areas of the current service that can be supported by IoT based intelligent systems. The feedback that staff provided was based on their knowledge and understanding of the needs of specific service user groups and included information regarding the appropriateness and applicability of the technologies, as well as the appeal, acceptability and usability of these solutions.
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Papers by Praminda Caleb-Solly