Human-like social robots for human-robot symbiosis

• Takayuki Kanda (Kyoto University, Japan):

Takayuki Kanda is a professor in Informatics at Kyoto University, Japan. He is also a Visiting Group Leader at ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories, Kyoto, Japan. He received his B. Eng, M. Eng, and Ph. D. degrees in computer science from Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, in 1998, 2000, and 2003, respectively. He is one of the starting members of Communication Robots project at ATR. He has developed a communication robot, Robovie, and applied it in daily situations, such as peer-tutor at elementary school and a museum exhibit guide. His research interests include human-robot interaction, interactive humanoid robots, and field trials.

Human-Robot Interactions for Therapy and Healthcare

• Cindy Bethel (Mississippi State University, USA):

Cindy L. Bethel, Ph.D. (IEEE and ACM Senior Member) is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department and the Billie J. Ball Endowed Professor in Engineering at Mississippi State University (MSU). She is the Director of the Social, Therapeutic, and Robotic Systems (STaRS) lab and a Research Fellow with the MSU Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems Human Performance Group and the MSU Social Science Research Center. She is a member of the Academy of Distinguished Teachers in the Bagley College of Engineering at MSU. She also was awarded the 2014-2015 ASEE New Faculty Research Award for Teaching. She graduated in August 2009 with her Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of South Florida. Her research interests include human-robot interaction, human-computer interaction, robotics, and artificial intelligence. Her research focuses on applications associated with robotic therapeutic support, information gathering from children, and the use of robots for law enforcement, search and rescue, and military.

What is robot emotion?

• Ho Seok Ahn (The University of Auckland, New Zealand):

Ho Seok AHN is a senior lecturer, which is equivalent to Associate Professor at major universities abroad, at the Department of Electrical, Computer and Software Engineering, University of Auckland, New Zealand. He received his B.S. degree in Information and Communication Engineering from Sungkyunkwan University, Republic of Korea, and his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer science from Seoul National University, Republic of Korea, in 2005 and 2010, respectively. He was a senior researcher at Korea Institute of Industrial Technology (KITECH), Republic of Korea, from 2010 to 2012. He was a lecture at University of Science & Technology (UST), Republic of Korea, from 2011 to 2012. He was a research scientist at Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories, Department of Ambient Intelligence, Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR), Japan, from 2012 to 2013. His research interests include social Human-Robot Interaction.

Cognitive Mirroring: A Computational Approach to Understanding and Assisting Autism Spectrum Disorder

• Yukie Nagai (National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Japan):

Dr. Yukie Nagai has been investigating underlying neural mechanisms for social cognitive development by means of computational approach. She designs neural network models for robots to learn to acquire cognitive functions such as self-other cognition, estimation of others’ intention and emotion, altruism, and so on based on her theory of predictive learning. The simulator reproducing atypical perception in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which has been developed by her group, greatly impacts on the society as it enables people with and without ASD to better understand potential causes for social difficulties. She is the research director of JST CREST Cognitive Mirroring since December 2016.

Using social robots for autism therapy: The DREAM project

• Tom Ziemke (University of Skövde and Linköping University, Sweden):

Tom Ziemke received the PhD from the University of Sheffield, UK, in 2000. He is Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Skövde and Professor of Cognitive Systems at Linköping University, Sweden. His main research interests are in embodied cognition and social interaction, with a recent focus on people’s interaction with different types of autonomous technologies, ranging from social robots to automated vehicles. He has been coordinator of the DREAM project (www.dream2020.eu) on social robots for autism therapy since 2014.