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Due to a speaker cancellation, each group got together and worked on their project.

No class

Latanya Sweeney, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Public Policy, spoke during the first hour to address data privacy issues in robotics. During the second hour, Joelle Pineau and Nick Roy will be joined us to elaborate on Pearl's current capabilities and areas in which additional data from field testing are needed/would be helpful.

Dr. William Mann from the University of Florida Research Engineering Center on Aging discussed his work with assistive devices.

Interview Session Notes (Word 97)

Walker-Bot Proposal (Word 97)
Walker-Bot Presentation Slides (ppt)

Nursebot navigation was demonstrated. The papers and presentations for the 14th were also discused.

Group discussion on the requirements of a robotic nursing assistant. Awaiting meeting notes...

• The focus groups split and had individual group meetings.
• Two non-wheeled walkers were obtained from UPNS

After watching the Nursebot Power Point/Video program we discussed what we were going to the following week when we had our visitors. Judy started the discussion by asking us what types of questions we would want to ask the individuals that would be coming to the class for the focus group. The questions were as follows:

• What are your apprehensions about working with a robot?
• What do you think that robots can do?
• Have you ever seen a robot before?
• How much knowledge do you have with computers
• How would you feel about being nagged by a robot to, for example, take your meds, have a drink of water, eat your lunch?
• Would you want a robot to have a male or female voice?
• What types of things do you need assistance with?
• What would you most want the robot to do?
• Is companionship a priority for you?
• Is a monotone voice enough feedback for companionship?
• What would you want the robot to sound like?
• Is there anything you would not want it to do?
• What would you expect the robot to do?
• Would you mind having something in your home that can communicate information outside your home to others?
• What shape would you want it to look like?
• Is there anything that it could help you do better?
• How much would you be willing to pay for it?
• Are there cultural issues that come in to play for you?
• Is it a legitimate role to have a robot that would take place of families ore can it support the cultural values?
• Can the robot take away the redundant tasks, such as reminders etc. ?
• Is there an issue the way commands are given?
  

We also had a discussion about many different types of walkers and how they are used. Raghu and Aaron had visited a nursing home to observe individuals and to seek assistance on the use of walkers.

We also had a lengthy discussion about the cultural impact and possible conflict with the use of robots in the home.

Individual groups will try to meet prior to next Thursday's class to further discuss what tasks they feel the robot should be able to perform.

Test run
We moved Pearl out of the lab into a conference room and proceeded to setup all the hardware needed. Afterward, we ran the demos and the robotgraph program to move the robot. At this point we encountered a problem in that collision detection on Pearl was no longer working. With someone monitoring the robot as it moved, we built a map of part of the conference room and the outside corridor. Then we went through the steps of running the navigation software, but that was still broken. Finally, Pearl was shutdown and moved back to the lab.

Greg gave a quick rundown of the components of Pearl after which we began to familiarize ourselves with running Pearl. Greg and Joelle demonstrated how to startup Pearl and pointed out some potentially damaging effects of no starting up or shutting down Pearl correctly. Those that hadn't experience with a linux/unix environment were given a chance to familiarize themselves with the environment and run the programs starting with the canned and interactive demos. Afterwards, we proceeded to using programs to move the robot. Controlling the robot using the touchpad on the notebook proceeded without a hitch, but unfortunately, the navigation software was broken at the time.

A link to instruction on how to run the robot can be found HERE.

1. What is a robot?

1. Intelligent
   
2. Sensing (has sensors)
   
3. Mechanical components (has actuators= motor, brakes etc.)
   
4. Learning capability
   
5. Programmable by computer
   

2. What can robots do in healthcare:

1. Back-rubs!
   
2. Medication mgmt.
   
3. Cognitive assistant
   
4. Lifting assistant
   
5. Assist/conduct surgery
   1. Robo-Doc
      1. used in Germany x 10y
6. Assess health status (diagnostic)
   
7. Assist physically disabled/elderly
   

3. Yoky’s research:

1. Assist human movements w/ human-robot interaction
   
2. Using robots:
   1. Understand neural control of mvmt
      
   2. Provide robotic rehabilitation tools to make permanent improvement via plasticity; these functions may be made possible by the presence of the robot
      
   3. Be able to improve permanently the function
      
3. Some definitions:
   
   1. Prosthetics:
      1. body part replacement or wearable external device
      
   2. Haptic device:
      1. “sense of touch”; stationary interactive robot
      
   3. Wearable/implantable:
      1. sensors and actuators within the body
      
4. Advantages of using robots to assist:
   
   1. Exert force w/o fatigue
      
   2. Can record people’s activities precisely
      
   3. Provide independence for family/care-givers
      
   4. Potential for those who are disabled to go about their lives w/o knowing that a robot is there
5. How do robots and humans interact?
   
   1. Understand human’s deficits and supplement w/ robotic assistance
      1. this is done by adaptation
      
   2. Allow humans to adapt to robotic assistance
      1. this is also done by adaptation
      
6. Some applications integrating human-robotic mutual adaptation:
   
   1. Rehab after injury
      
   2. Assistance after permanent paralysis
      
   3. Elderly assistance
      
   4. Injury prevention
      
   5. Injury/illness prevention using detection
      
   6. Predicting disease onset with wearable sensors (e.g., Huntington’s Disease)
      
   7. Constructing exoskeleton for permanent movement assistance
      
   8. Developing interface b/w silicon and neuron using molecular wire