Using robots to reach out to isolated people

Researchers from Queen Mary University of London are taking part in a major new project looking at how cutting-edge robotics can enable people to participate in public spaces, as a place to meet and share ideas without being there in person. The £2m three-year project , Being There: Humans and Robots in Public Spaces , funded by the EPSRC, will examine how robotics can help to bridge the gap between the way we communicate in person and online. It brings together researchers from Queen Mary and the Universities of Bath, Exeter, Oxford, and the Bristol Robotics Laboratory* to look at the social and technological aspects of being able to appear in public in proxy forms, via a range of advanced robotics platforms. Assistant professor in digital media, Dr Hatice Gunes from Queen Mary's School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science will lead on the analysis of human nonverbal behaviour and emotional expressions in human-robot interactions. "We are excited about extending our research in automatic analysis of individual emotions and nonverbal behaviour to public space settings where multiple people, multiple groups and even robots will be meeting and interacting," said Dr Gunes. The research team will create a 'living laboratory', using state-of-the-art technologies to measure how people respond to, and interact with other people who are acting through a robot representative. The scientists will use an advanced programmable humanoid robot 'Nao', which they will take into public spaces around Bristol to measure human interaction with robots.