Publications related to Three Laws of Robotics

Participatory design of a social robot and robot-mediated storytelling activity to raise awareness of gender inequality among children

Gender inequality is a widespread problem in our society. It can manifest itself in many ways and contexts, and starting as early as primary school. While an increasing number of initiatives aim at tackling gender biases and inequalities, few of them are a ...

IEEE2023

How to compete with robots by assessing job automation risks and resilient alternatives

Dario Floreano, Nicola Nosengo, Fabrizio Schiano, Rafael Lalive, William John Stewart, Davide Zambrano, Antonio Paolillo

The effects of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) on the job market are matters of great social concern. Economists and technology experts are debating at what rate, and to what extent, technology could be used to replace humans in occupations, and ...

2022

Questioning Wizard of Oz: Effects of Revealing the Wizard behind the Robot

Pierre Dillenbourg, Pierre Pravin Oppliger, Barbara Bruno, Jauwairia Nasir

Wizard of Oz, a very commonly employed technique in human-robot interaction, faces the criticism of being deceptive as the humans interacting with the robot are told, if at all, only at the end of their interaction that there was in fact a human behind the ...

IEEE2022

Robot Agreeableness and User Engagement in Verbal Human-Robot Interaction

Barbara Bruno

It is a well-established fact in the field of Human-Robot Interaction that the personality a social robot is endowed with (i.e., the one it expresses by its gestures and words) plays a key role towards the engagement experienced by any person interacting w ...

IEEE2020

Using tabletop robots to promote inclusive classroom experiences

Wafa Monia Benkaouar Johal, Arzu Güneysu Özgür, Ana Paiva

Geometry and handwriting rely heavily on the visual representation of basic shapes. It can become challenging for students with visual impairments to perceive these shapes and understand complex spatial constructs. For instance, knowing how to draw is high ...

ACM2020

An Institutional Approach to Normative Distributed Robotics for Mixed Societies of Humans and Robots

Alicja Barbara Roelofsen

We are entering the era of robots, for everyone, everywhere. The expectations of the robots being reliable, intelligent and friendly artificial creatures drive the key challenges of the state-of-the-art robotics: technological, practical and social. The la ...

EPFL2020

Localization of inexpensive robots with low-bandwidth sensors

Francesco Mondada, Stéphane Magnenat, Ming Liu, Shiling Wang

Recent progress in electronics has allowed the construction of affordable mobile robots. This opens many new opportunities, in particular in the context of collective robotics. However, while several algorithms in this field require global localization, th ...

SPRINGER INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING AG2019

Inquiry-Based Learning with RoboGen: An Open-Source Software and Hardware Platform for Robotics and Artificial Intelligence

Dario Floreano, Joshua Evan Auerbach, Przemyslaw Mariusz Kornatowski, Alice Ghislaine Concordel

It has often been found that students appreciate hands-on work, and find that they learn more with courses that include a project than those relying solely on conventional lectures and tests. This type of project driven learning is a key component of “Inqu ...

2019

Benchmarking Agility For Multilegged Terrestrial Robots

Auke Ijspeert, Peter Eckert

In this paper, we present a novel and practical approach for benchmarking agility. We focus on terrestrial, multilegged locomotion in the field of bio-inspired robotics. We define agility as the ability to perform a set of different but specific tasks exec ...

2019

Neuromuscular model achieving speed control and steering with a 3D bipedal walker

Auke Ijspeert, Renaud Ronsse, Nicolas Benoît Dominique Van der Noot

Nowadays, very few humanoid robots manage to travel in our daily environments. This is mainly due to their limited locomotion capabilities, far from the human ones. Recently, we developed a bio-inspired torque-based controller recruiting virtual muscles dr ...

SPRINGER2019

Robot Analytics: What Do Human-Robot Interaction Traces Tell Us About Learning?

Pierre Dillenbourg, Wafa Monia Benkaouar Johal, Jennifer Kaitlyn Olsen, Jauwairia Nasir, Utku Norman, Sina Shahmoradi

In this paper, we propose that the data generated by educational robots can be better used by applying learning analytics methods and techniques which can lead to a deeper understanding of the learners’ apprehension and behavior as well as refined guidelin ...

IEEE2019

An Origami-Inspired Reconfigurable Suction Gripper for Picking Objects with Variable Shape and Size

Aude Billard, Jamie Paik, Zhenishbek Zhakypov

Gripper adaptability to handle objects of different shape and size brings high flexibility to manipulation. Gripping flat, round, or narrow objects poses challenges to even the most sophisticated robotic grippers. Among various gripper technologies, the va ...

2018

A Soft Robot for Random Exploration of Terrestrial Environments

Dario Floreano, Stefano Mintchev, Davide Zappetti, Jérémie Willemin

A swarm of randomly moving miniature robots is an effective solution for the exploration of unknown terrains. However, the deployment of a swarm of miniature robots poses two challenges: finding an adequate locomotion strategy for fast exploration and obst ...

IEEE2018

Device, System, and Method for Robot-Controlled Induction of the Feeling of Human Presence

Olaf Blanke, Giulio Rognini, Masayuki Hara

A method for inducing the feeling of a presence (FoP) in a subject by using a master-slave robotic system, the method including the steps of altering a visual perception of a surrounding environment of the subject, connecting the subject with a robotic mas ...

2016

Bio-inspired balance controller for a humanoid robot

Auke Ijspeert, Renaud Ronsse, Nicolas Benoît Dominique Van der Noot, François André Heremans

Humanoid robots are gaining much interest nowadays. This is partly motivated by the ability of such robots to replace humans in dangerous environments being specifically designed for humans, such as man-made or natural disaster scenarios. However, existing ...

Ieee2016

Adaptive Morphology: A Design Principle for Multimodal and Multifunctional Robots

Dario Floreano, Stefano Mintchev

Morphology plays an important role in behavioral and locomotion strategies of living and artificial systems. There is biological evidence that adaptive morphological changes can not only extend dynamic performances by reducing tradeoffs during locomotion b ...

Ieee-Inst Electrical Electronics Engineers Inc2016

Graph-Based Distributed Control for Adaptive Multi-Robot Patrolling through Local Formation Transformation

Alcherio Martinoli, José Nuno Ferreira Maia Pereira, Alicja Barbara Roelofsen, Rodrigo Martins de Matos Ventura

Multi-robot cooperative navigation in real-world environments is essential in many applications, including surveillance and search-and-rescue missions. State-of-the-art methods for cooperative navigation are often tested in ideal laboratory conditions and ...

Ieee2016

Cheetah-cub-S: Steering of a Quadruped Robot using Trunk Motion

Auke Ijspeert, Peter Eckert, Karl Weinmeister

A reliable concept for steering was realized by in- tegrating a spine-like structure with one DoF into a quadruped robot - Cheetah-cub-S. We increased maneuverability dramat- ically compared to a robot with rigid spine, while keeping controlling effort low ...

2015

Construction Automation with Autonomous Mobile Robots: A Review

Francesco Mondada, Hadi Ardiny, Stefan John Witwicki

We review state-of-the-art research into automated construction by autonomous mobile robots. Today, space research agencies seek to build infrastructure without human intervention; and construction companies look to robots with the potential to improve in ...

2015

IniRobot : a pedagogical kit to initiate children to concepts of robotics and computer science

Francesco Mondada, Stéphane Magnenat, Fanny Riedo, Morgane Solène Denise Chevalier, Gordana Gerber

We present the IniRobot pedagogical kit, conceived and deployed within French and Swiss primary schools for the initiation to robotics and computer science. It provides a microworld for learning, and takes an enquiry-based educational approach, where kids ...

Roboptics Edition2015