CSEE Seminar Series - Visual Audio Attention for Human-Robot Interaction

At present, robots are leaving laboratories to be increasingly present in our houses. Society is more receptive than ever towards robots and eager for robotic support in daily activities.

However the interaction with robots in typical unstructured scenario is not always reliable but rather, most of the time, elusive. Our approach is to leverage humanoid robots to enable natural engagement with humans and promote their presence in our lives. The humanoid characteristic of the robot not only refers to the appearance but also to its intelligent behaviour. In particular, cognitive robotics models applied to humanoid robots will produce behaviours that are able to elicit innate response of interaction in humans.

Dr Francesco Rea will present iCub as a successful humanoid robotic platform for research that leads the growth of a robotic community sharing experience on the robotic platform iCub. In the last 5 years huge improvements in the field of perception, locomotion, HRI have been achieved thanks to this active community of researchers.

Dr Rea will present the latest breakthroughs that made the iCub one of the most reliable humanoid robots in Europe. In particular, Dr Rea will present in details the PROACTIVE VISUAL ATTENTION (PROVISION) system for iCub. PROVISION is the state of the art of visual attention system including bottom- up and top-down responses, and synthesis of biological inspired oculomotor actions. The discussion will lead to generic considerations on how robotics is likely to impact on the society in the next 5 years.