We're pleased to invite colleagues to the 1st Supervised autonomy: how to shape human-robot interaction from the body to the brain  (workshop number 4431) that will be held at International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2024 on Friday 17th May 2024 in Yokohama, Japan.

Overview

Safety–critical processes in unpredictable environments require human intervention to assist or execute tasks that autonomous robots are not yet capable of handling. In diverse environments, the increased levels of autonomy for robots demand human–machine interaction to be safer, more intuitive, comfortable, and robust. Supervised autonomy - the robot’s autonomy supervised by humans - bridges the gap between teleoperated robotics and full autonomy. By automating specific tasks while keeping the humans in the loop, supervised autonomy can enhance the safety and productivity of individuals including workers, users, and patients, while providing operators with the ability to intervene when necessary. Human-robot interaction, collaboration and role adaptation during human-robot cooperation are characterized by different aspects that go from the body to the brain of the robot facilitated through communication interfaces. The Supervised autonomy: how to shape human-robot interaction from the body to the brain workshop intends to investigate the influence of all those aspects on the realization of supervised autonomy in robots operating in different domains, such as driving, flying, assistive technologies, teleoperation, medical applications, logistics, manufacturing. How to shape human-robot "InterAction" is a question to be answered by focusing on the integrated “Phygital” aspects concerning sensors, design and materials, control and artificial intelligence.

Organizers:

Antonio Bicchi is Senior Scientist at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa and the Chair of Robotics at the University of Pisa. He graduated from the University of Bologna in 1988 and was a postdoc scholar at M.I.T.  Artificial Intelligence lab.  He teaches  Robotics and Control Systems in the Department of Information Engineering  (DII) of the University of Pisa. He leads the Robotics Group at the  Research Center "E. Piaggio'' of the University of Pisa since 1990. He is the head of the SoftRobotics Lab for Human Cooperation and Rehabilitation at IIT in Genoa. Since 2013 he serves ad Adjunct Professor at the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering of Arizona State University. From January, 2023, he is the Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Robotics Reserach (IJRR), the first scientific journal in Robotics. He has been the founding Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters  (2015-2019), which rapidly became the top Robotics journal by number of submissions. He has organized the first WorldHaptics Conference (2005), today the premier conference in the field. He is a co-founder and President of the Italian Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Machines (I-RIM) His main research interests are in Robotics, Haptics, and Control Systems. He has published more than 500 papers on international journals, books, and refereed conferences.

Fanny Ficuciello is an Associate Professor with the University of Naples Federico II. She obtained a Ph.D. degree in computer and automation engineering from the same University, in 2010. She is responsible for scientific research in medical robotics at the Robotics Lab of ICAROS Center (Interdepartmental Center for Advances in Robotic Surgery). She is the Vice-director of ICAROS Center. Her research activity is focused on biomechanical design and bio-aware control strategies for anthropomorphic hand/arm robotic systems, surgical robotics and rehabilitation robotics, and human-robot interaction control. She has published more than 100 journal and conference papers and book chapters and she holds four patents on medical devices. Since 2008 she has been a member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and in 2017 she received the upgrade to IEEE Senior Member. Currently, she serves as Specialty Chief Editor for the Frontiers Journal of Robotics and AI in the Section Biomedical Robotics, and as Associate Editor for Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics (TMRB).

Pietro Falco obtained his undergraduate and master's degrees in 2006 and 2008 respectively. He earned his Ph.D. in Electronic Engineering in February 2012 and held a postdoctoral position until February 2015 at the Second University of Naples. He conducted research at Karlsruher Institute of Technology from December 2010 to July 2011. Pietro's interests include machine learning for robotics, human manipulation observation, and robotic mobile manipulation. He co-founded Aeromechs in 2011 and later transitioned to an academic career in Munich. He received various fellowships and joined ABB Corporate Research in 2018.

Letizia Gionfrida received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biomedical engineering from the University of Naples Federico II. In 2021, she obtained her Ph.D. in bioengineering from Imperial College London, England, UK. In 2022, she joined as a postdoctoral fellow the biorobotics lab at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Boston, USA, where she maintains her affiliation. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Informatics, Faculty of Natural Mathematical and Engineering Sciences at King’s College London, England, UK, where she leads the Vision in Human Robotics Lab, investigating the role of vision-based sensing in motor control. She currently serves as the Associate Co-Chair of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Technical Committee in Computer and Robot Vision.

Daekyum Kim received his B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles, (Los Angeles, CA, USA), in 2015. He earned his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science at KAIST (Daejeon, Republic of Korea), in 2021. He was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University (Cambridge, MA, USA), co-affiliated with Wyss Institute. Since September 2023, he has been an Assistant Professor with the School of Smart mobility and the School of Mechanical Engineering, Korea University (Seoul, Republic of Korea). His research interests are in the areas of machine learning, computer vision, robotics, and digital healthcare.

Massimiliano Simi holds a PhD in Medical Robotics from the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa, a Master’s Degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Pisa, and completed an Executive MBA in 2016. Massimiliano Simi is the Global Vice President of Research & Development and a co-founder of Medical MicroInstruments Inc. (MMI). He has over 15 years of experience in Surgical Robotics, boasting more than 50 patents to his name. In 2015, he founded MMI with a $100M investment to introduce robotic motion precision into Microsurgery. Massimiliano designed the smallest articulated surgical instrument, leading MMI to obtain CE certification in 2019, with installations across the EU. Supported by a $24M Series A funding in 2018 and a recent $75M Series B in 2022, MMI is on track for FDA approval and the US market launch. Before launching MMI, Massimiliano served as Lead Engineer at MEDRA, providing technical solutions in robotics and mechatronics to Bay Area medical device companies.

Sponsors:

This proposal has been endorsed by the IEEE RAS Human-robot interaction & coordination Technical Committee.