Robotics Commons^™

Artificial Emotional Intelligence In Socially Assistive Robots, Hojjat Abdollahi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Artificial Emotional Intelligence (AEI) bridges the gap between humans and machines by demonstrating empathy and affection towards each other. This is achieved by evaluating the emotional state of human users, adapting the machine’s behavior to them, and hence giving an appropriate response to those emotions. AEI is part of a larger field of studies called Affective Computing. Affective computing is the integration of artificial intelligence, psychology, robotics, biometrics, and many more fields of study. The main component in AEI and affective computing is emotion, and how we can utilize emotion to create a more natural and productive relationship between humans …

Design, Manufacture, And Test Of A Hybrid Aerial-Ground Robotic Platform, William Garrett Willmon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A hybrid aerial-ground robotic platform allows for enhanced functionality combining most of the operational profiles of an aerial and ground vehicle with applications to intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR), infrastructure inspection, emergency response, photography, etc. Motivated by this challenge, we designed, developed, and tested a prototype hybrid aerial-ground robotic vehicle capable of guidance, navigation, and control in the air and on the ground. The thesis focus is on the system design. As such, at first, we designed and analyzed the mechanical component to ensure durability. We then designed the electrical component to reduce overall weight and maximize battery life. We developed …

Nyku: A Social Robot For Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Dan Stephan Stoianovici

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The continued growth of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) around the world has spurred a growth in new therapeutic methods to increase the positive outcomes of an ASD diagnosis. It has been agreed that the early detection and intervention of ASD disorders leads to greatly increased positive outcomes for individuals living with the disorders. Among these new therapeutic methods, Robot-Assisted Therapy (RAT) has become a hot area of study. Recent works have shown that high functioning ASD children have an affinity for interacting with robots versus humans. It is proposed that this is due to a less complex set of communication …

A Pilot Study On Facial Expression Recognition Ability Of Autistic Children Using Ryan, A Rear-Projected Humanoid Robot, Farzaneh Askari, Huanghao Feng, Timothy D. Sweeny, Mohammad H. Mahoor

Electrical and Computer Engineering: Graduate Student Scholarship

Rear-projected robots use computer graphics technology to create facial animations and project them on a mask to show the robot’s facial cues and expressions. These types of robots are becoming commercially available, though more research is required to understand how they can be effectively used as a socially assistive robotic agent. This paper presents the results of a pilot study on comparing the facial expression recognition abilities of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) with typically developing (TD) children using a rear-projected humanoid robot called Ryan. Six children with ASD and six TD children participated in this research, where Ryan …

How Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder Recognize Facial Expressions Displayed By A Rear-Projection Humanoid Robot, Farzaneh Askari, Huanghao Feng, Anibal Gutierrez, Timothy Sweeny, Mohammad H. Mahoor

Electrical and Computer Engineering: Graduate Student Scholarship

Background: Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) experience reduced ability to perceive crucial nonverbal communication cues such as eye gaze, gestures, and facial expressions. Recent studies suggest that social robots can be used as effective tools to improve communication and social skills in children with ASD. One explanation has been put forward by several studies that children with ASD feel more contented and motivated in systemized and predictable environment, like interacting with robots.

Objectives: There have been few research studies evaluating how children with ASD perceive facial expression in humanoid robots but no research evaluating facial expression perception …

Optimized Trajectory Generation For Car-Like Robots On A Closed Loop Track, Tyler Friedl

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a method for generating an optimized path through a given track. The path is generated by choosing waypoints throughout the track then iteratively optimizing the position of these waypoints. The waypoints are then connected by optimized paths represented by curvature polynomials. The end result is a path through the track represented as a spline of curvature polynomials. This method is applied to multiple simulated tracks and the results are presented. By generating and representing the paths in the continuous domain, the method has improved computational efficiency from many of the discrete methods used to generate an optimal …

Using Robots As Therapeutic Agents To Teach Children With Autism Recognize Facial Expression, Seyedmohammad Mavadati, Huanghao Feng, Peyten B. Sanger, S. Silver, Anibal Gutierrez, Mohammad H. Mahoor

Electrical and Computer Engineering: Graduate Student Scholarship

Background: Recognizing and mimicking facial expressions are important cues for building great rapport and relationship in human-human communication. Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have often deficits in recognizing and mimicking social cues, such as facial expressions. In the last decade several studies have shown that individuals with ASD have superior engagement toward objects and particularly robots (i.e. humanoid and non-humanoid). However, majority of the studies have focused on investigating robot’s appearances and the engineering design concepts and very few research have been done on the effectiveness of robots in therapeutic and treatment applications. In fact, the critical question that …

Children-Robot Interaction: Eye Gaze Analysis Of Children With Autism During Social Interactions, Seyedmohammad Mavadati, Huanghao Feng, S. Silver, Anibal Gutierrez, Mohammad H. Mahoor

Electrical and Computer Engineering: Graduate Student Scholarship

Background:

Typical developing individuals utilize the direction of eye gaze and eye fixation/shifting as crucial elements to transmit socially relevant information (e.g. like, dislike) to others. Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), deviant pattern of mutual eye gaze is a noticeable feature that may be one of the earliest (detectable) demonstrations of impaired social skills that would lead to other deficits in ASD Individuals (e.g. delaying development of social cognition and affective construal processes). This can significantly affect the quality of human’s social interactions. Recent studies reveal that children with ASD have superior engagement to the robot-based interaction, and it …